D&D 5E Why FR Is "Hated"
cbwjm
Seb-wejem
Most of the negativity I've seen is more to do with wanting somewhere new for an adventure path rather than actual hate of the setting. I have seen some complain about all the high level characters as well but I've never really found that to be an issue.
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Sent from my SM-G925I using EN World mobile app
I disagree here. The metaplot is one of the reasons I like the FR and I would never bother to waste time with a "dead setting" like Eberron where there is no developing metaplot.
Because it's the 4e problem all over again.
The FR fans liked the FR for exactly what it was. A story setting driven by a developing metaplot. The FR haters hated FR exactly for that.
Now they again changed the FR to remove what the haters hated. Problem: The haters are still at best "meh" about the setting, while it's fans are now also driven off.
Just look at how basically all FR fansites died during 4e, got a short second wind during all the lead up to the Sundering and then quickly died down again once it was clear that it was just a bunch of empty talk with nothing to follow up on it.
FR fans want a 5e FRCs with every every nook and cranny spelled out. For them it's not a bug but a feature, they don't want a blank canvas full of DM freedom.
Sure, now those FR fans who disagree with me will speak up how I am wrong in my generalisation. Leaves one to wonder where all those FR fans are and why they let all FR comunnity sites die once the detail loving FR fans left.
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I think the reasons it's disliked are pretty much the same reasons it's popular.
It's an easy setting to run in - most of the work has been done for you. If you don't much care for world-building and creating storylines, that's a plus. If you like to create your own stuff, it feels stifling and overcrowded.
I like to create my own stories, so I've just used bits and pieces of the Forgotten Realms in various campaigns over the years.
One campaign followed the events of the Time of Troubles, with the main adversary being an ancestor of one of the PC's that had escaped from whatever afterlife he'd been sent to during the Time of Troubles. During his escape, he ended up in a realm that AoO had created and found the Tome of Fate - it recorded the True Names of all the gods and mortals, and their fate. He learned how divine beings gained power...and how they could be killed. He erased his name from the tome, rending himself undetected by gods and mortals alike, and then made his way back to the mortal plane to set plans in motion using his newly gained knowledge. Namely - killing off all the gods and releasing mortals from their divine tyranny. I used a lot of FR lore for that one, but took everything in a much darker direction.
The next campaign was set a thousand years in the future, after a "God War" triggered by the Time of Troubles killed off all the gods and separated the FR Crystal Sphere from the rest of the multi-verse, stranding it deep in the Far Realms. I just the used the FR maps for that campaign, everything else was home brew.
My current campaign is new world, and has a homebrew cosmology, unrelated to the "Great Wheel" cosmology of 2nd edition. My own maps and storylines, but I use the FR pantheon because it's convenient.
It's an easy setting to run in - most of the work has been done for you. If you don't much care for world-building and creating storylines, that's a plus. If you like to create your own stuff, it feels stifling and overcrowded.
I like to create my own stories, so I've just used bits and pieces of the Forgotten Realms in various campaigns over the years.
One campaign followed the events of the Time of Troubles, with the main adversary being an ancestor of one of the PC's that had escaped from whatever afterlife he'd been sent to during the Time of Troubles. During his escape, he ended up in a realm that AoO had created and found the Tome of Fate - it recorded the True Names of all the gods and mortals, and their fate. He learned how divine beings gained power...and how they could be killed. He erased his name from the tome, rending himself undetected by gods and mortals alike, and then made his way back to the mortal plane to set plans in motion using his newly gained knowledge. Namely - killing off all the gods and releasing mortals from their divine tyranny. I used a lot of FR lore for that one, but took everything in a much darker direction.
The next campaign was set a thousand years in the future, after a "God War" triggered by the Time of Troubles killed off all the gods and separated the FR Crystal Sphere from the rest of the multi-verse, stranding it deep in the Far Realms. I just the used the FR maps for that campaign, everything else was home brew.
My current campaign is new world, and has a homebrew cosmology, unrelated to the "Great Wheel" cosmology of 2nd edition. My own maps and storylines, but I use the FR pantheon because it's convenient.
Zardnaar
Legend
FR fan, not a fan of the realms shaking events although the 2E to 3.0 transition was better than 1E to 2E or 3.5 to 4E IMHO.
FR can almost get away with it some of the other settings suffered more (Krynn, Darksun, Greyhawk, Mystara etc).
Satyrn
First Post
There's an AD&D green book on playing in ancient Rome that makes for a good sourcebook. And then there's a 3rd party 3e book (and for some stupid reason I'm stumbling over remembering the publisher) on Greece called Relics and Rituals: Olympus.
I'd turn to those were I to do Rome/Greece. And maybe toss in Gygax's 3e Necropolis (because I have a copy!) as a starting point for the Egyptian bits.
Jester David
Hero
I disagree that the problem is "metaplot". I think the issue is "too much metaplot".
When you have adventures and novels and organised play games and comics and video games that are all effectively canon and fighting to define what actually happened to certain people or gods or places then that's an issue. At that point, the problem isn't that events occurred and the world progressed, it's that too much was happening and it was impossible to keep track.
It's the quantity and quality of the metaplot and the world events.
Compare this to Eberron that's effectively static. There's zero reason to update the setting beyond a 16-page rules supplement. Because despite the adventures, comics, novels, and even a MMO and two organised play campaigns, nothing of note has occurred in the world. Nothing that happens in the world really matters.
With two APs a year, they could slowly change and tweak things in the Realms. Especially since if Good wins in half of them, nothing in the world is altered. Just Tyranny of Dragons, Rage of Demons, and Storm King's Thunder have any noticeable impact. And the effects of the last one will likely be "fixed" after a year or two in-world.
The lore and metaplot is going slow enough that you can keep up.
The metaplot means it's a living, growing, changing world. Which can make it feel more "real" as history is unfolding.
Sadly, WotC isn't even trying anymore. Unlike TSR. There's no attempt at making the APs "canon" or resolving what happened where. So you have the adventurers contradicting the few novels. Because they mandated that Drizzt had to fight Demogorgon and win despite him being big in the adventure. (Couldn't he have lost? Or they could have had Orcus or Baphomet for the climax instead.) And because of the tie-ins, the dates the various events took place doesn't make much sense.
I'd love for WotC to do a "survey" of the results of the APs and find out what happened in the majority of people's games and use that to establish the canon going forward.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
But that's the whole point! In a fantasy world you *can* do this and have it work.
I mean, neither Arthurian England nor Renaissance Italy had to worry about the Dwarves in the mountains or Elves in the forests, did they...or raiding orcs coming down out of the hills on a regular basis...
Well, every game I ever run is going to have classical Greeks and-or Romans in it somewhere, and Celtic tribes, and Vikings, one or more renaissance-era cultures, and some sort of far-eastern (Mongolian? Japanese?) cultures as well...and Dwarves and Elves and Hobbits and monsters*. In my current game I've also got variants on Egyptian, Sumerian, Persian and early French (i.e. France just after the Norse invaded and settled down) along with one or two human cultures that I've made up out of nothing. My view of fantasy history pretty much lines up with Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert: throw it all in a blender and see what fun results.
* - lots and lots of monsters.
Where to me that's a point in FR's favour - there's always a bigger fish. And so there should be, whether it's higher-level characters, or deities, or immortals, or whatever.Saelorn said:
I don't mind the PCs feeling important after a while, but no matter how big they get there needs to be something that can cause them real fear, or make them bend the knee without even thinking twice.
Yes. CSotIO is just the main city and not much else. CSotWE, which came later, kinda waves at the city but then goes on to cover much more area around it...and it's the area around it, with all the small towns and villages and adventure hooks, which makes it worthwhile.SkidAce said:
Lan-"one of these days I really do intend to give Birthright a good run out and see what it can do"-efan
FR is successful for the same reason I don't like it*: It's a generic** fantasy, kitchen sink setting where all kinds of fantasy elements are thrown together without rhyme or reason.
As somebody who likes settings with a clear theme and concept, that annoys me. But for the Official D&D Setting, it almost has to be something like FR. D&D must accommodate everything from hack and slash, to high fantasy, to gothic horror, to steampunk intrigue, and on and on. A setting which focused on one of those would exclude the others. Because FR has a little bit of everything, it can "do" anything--not as well as a dedicated setting, but well enough.
As for Drizzt, I ain't fond of him, but he sells books, so that's another argument for FR as the Official Setting.
[SIZE=-2]*Note that I say "I don't like it," not "the community doesn't like it." I don't know how the community feels, and neither does anyone else who has not conducted some proper market research. And polls on ENWorld ain't market research.
**Except that it's got the Tolkien Triad (elves'n'dwarves'n'halflings) everywhere, which is actually very idiosyncratic and not generic at all, but you sure wouldn't know it the way D&D players talk.[/SIZE]
As somebody who likes settings with a clear theme and concept, that annoys me. But for the Official D&D Setting, it almost has to be something like FR. D&D must accommodate everything from hack and slash, to high fantasy, to gothic horror, to steampunk intrigue, and on and on. A setting which focused on one of those would exclude the others. Because FR has a little bit of everything, it can "do" anything--not as well as a dedicated setting, but well enough.
As for Drizzt, I ain't fond of him, but he sells books, so that's another argument for FR as the Official Setting.
[SIZE=-2]*Note that I say "I don't like it," not "the community doesn't like it." I don't know how the community feels, and neither does anyone else who has not conducted some proper market research. And polls on ENWorld ain't market research.
**Except that it's got the Tolkien Triad (elves'n'dwarves'n'halflings) everywhere, which is actually very idiosyncratic and not generic at all, but you sure wouldn't know it the way D&D players talk.[/SIZE]
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