AFAIK, the primary draw of Forgotten Realms IS the wealth of support the Realms have.
For people who like that sort of thing, sure. I used enjoy learning about all the lore of the realms and finding interesting ways of using it in adventures. But I never felt like it was required that I use absolutely everything - just the bits I was interested in and could use.
I may be a special case though - I was always way more knowledgeable about Realms lore than my players, who basically didn't care much one way or the other. One of the reasons I stopped using the Realms - I was more interested in creating my own setting and the players....still don't care.
They still tell me they enjoy the games, and I get more enjoyment out of creating my own stuff. But that's not exactly relevant to the topic at hand.
Outside of that, what does FR actually offer? It doesn't have a library of classic modules (like Greyhawk), it doesn't have a strong theme (like Ravenloft or Planescape), it doesn't have any unique hooks (like Eberron or Al-Quadim).
Really powerful NPC's you can hang with and eventually kill. You think I'm kidding.
FR is a pretty vanilla setting. Once you take away that mountain of material, what does it actually offer me that I cannot get from any other setting? That's the point I keep trying to make.
Active support from WOTC in the form of new and updated adventures. If you don't care about that? Nothing.
The prime selling point of FR is the setting material. Take that away (because for me, that's not a selling point but a non-starter), and there's nothing left.
And, as I've said before, that's fine. Don't use it. Unless one or more of your players is a Realm fanboy, there is literally nothing forcing you to use it.
Everyone here keeps starting from the position of "I like the Realms, why don't you?"
I don't think this is actually true. I certainly don't start from that position. I used to like the Realms and still keep my toe in the water of Realmslore out of habit, but I've played in a lot of other settings and have currently created my own homebrew setting. I just use the pantheon in the SCAG book because I'm lazy and all my players have the book.
They are all good, if the DM makes them good.
Strip out the setting material from Forgotten Realms and I have a bog standard, stock, D&D campaign.
Sure. Same thing would happen with Greyhawk. I'm just not sure why this is a problem. That is exactly what the Realms are supposed to be - the default, bog standard, campaign setting that helps introduce new players to the game (like Greyhawk was before it). They both started as homebrew campaigns, but were turned into a flagship commercial product.
You can do tons of research and keep track of all the major players and Realms lore, but you really don't have too. It's just a fun side-game for the mildly autistic among us who like to obsess about things like that.
WOTC certainly doesn't care about ignoring mountains of past details until they decide to recycle them for a new adventure path, why should you?
