D&D General My Problem(s) With Halflings, and How To Create Engaging/Interesting Fantasy Races

[Bolares]

That's kind of the point. What media would you point to that people would know that includes the realms?

Sorry, I don't understand your question

 

[BRayne]

Since we're playing with Google, I just googled Critical Role LLC's net worth. Google pegs it at about 2.87 million dollars. Certainly very respectable. Not going to argue with that at all. For comparison, Ed Greenwood's net worth is 1.3 million dollars. R. A. Salvatore is estimated at 8 million (although another site pegs it at 15 million for what it's worth).

How much you figure Forgotten Realms is worth?

Those net worth estimate sites are notoriously unreliable.

 

[Bolares]

Look, I don't have a horse in this race, but the argument seems to be a bit shallow. Are we comparing historical success here? Are we gauging which setting is more popular today? Is it valid to conflate critical role's success with Exandria's success? Are we evaluating them only as settings, or their appearances in other media are on the table too?

 

[Yaarel]

Google trends seems to disagree.

Strange recent spike in FR search results though. Might be the movie.

Among the official settings, Forgotten Realms is more popular than other settings. But many players homebrew their own settings, and the other official settings have some traction. Only a minority of D&D players prefer Forgotten Realms. In some sense, Forgotten Realms isnt popular, but is the most popular. It enjoys a plurality, but not a majority.

The reason WotC has been strong-arming Forgotten Realms is for the sake of trademark names and corporate branding, including name recognition in movies and so on.

Only recently has WotC started to cautiously dabble in other settings, including Eberron and Magic The Gathering.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Sorry, I don't understand your question

The original point was that "people kind of know what's going on with the Forgotten Realms" and that's why WoTC chose it.

I'm wondering why that's a safe assumption, especially with all the new blood in the hobby. How are people getting this familiarity if they aren't already in the hobby?

I'm contrasting that with Exandria, where you can directly point to an entrance vector (Critical Role).

 

[Cadence]

The original point was that "people kind of know what's going on with the Forgotten Realms" and that's why WoTC chose it.

Is Forgotten Realms one of the worlds where the various countries map to real world ones?

It feels like any kitchen sink world with pretty transparent real world analogs would be pretty easy to grok.

 

[Bolares]

The original point was that "people kind of know what's going on with the Forgotten Realms" and that's why WoTC chose it.

I'm wondering why that's a safe assumption, especially with all the new blood in the hobby. How are people getting this familiarity if they aren't already in the hobby?

I'm contrasting that with Exandria, where you can directly point to an entrance vector (Critical Role).

Ahhh, I get it now, thanks. Yeah, I don't know about this assumption that people know the forgotten realms... 5e lore is a big mush (except for Eberron, where they've been clear it is separate from the multiverse) and FR was not so well supported in my country, so I find it hard to assume everyone knows the lore

 

[Gammadoodler]

Since we're playing with Google, I just googled Critical Role LLC's net worth. Google pegs it at about 2.87 million dollars. Certainly very respectable. Not going to argue with that at all. For comparison, Ed Greenwood's net worth is 1.3 million dollars. R. A. Salvatore is estimated at 8 million (although another site pegs it at 15 million for what it's worth).

How much you figure Forgotten Realms is worth?

Reasonable question.

Also a difficult comparison to make. The operating costs of an author include..a computer, maybe some travel, and internet access, maybe a few other sundries.

It certainly doesn't include a full production team, marketing, IT, etc.

Also, what Forgotten Realms setting book has ever been the number 1 selling book (all books) on Amazon (or an equivalent) for any period of time?

 

[Yaarel]

Is Forgotten Realms one of the worlds where the various countries map to real world ones?

It feels like any kitchen sink world with pretty transparent real world analogs would be pretty easy to grok.

Yes, Forgotten Realms is one of the worlds where the various countries map to reallife.

It isnt obvious at first glance, but compare:

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I hadn't looked up the numbers so I didn't even realize how not close it is. Based on all internet searches for sales figures of bits of identifiable lore.

Salvatore books sold worldwide approximately 30 million over his entire catalog of 50 or so titles.

"Insane" sales figures for opening week of BG3 early access, over 1M units sold.

Meanwhile CR YouTube looks like it shows over 1M views (ranging as high as 16 million) for almost every episode of both campaigns (over 250 3-7 hour long) episodes. This likely includes some duplicate and/or partial views but it doesn't include Twitch viewership or podcast listening.

Yep. And that’s all without the direct backing of a megacorp. FR seems bigger than it is when you’re a D&D nerd who knows other D&D nerds.

Hell, I would posit that at least a 3rd, if not a majority, of D&D players only know what they picked up reading the bits of the phb they had to read to make a character, about FR. I’d be willing to bet, if we could actually test it, that among D&D players under 40 (which is the solid majority of players), more players know a decent amount about CR than about FR.

Do you seriously think that Critical Role, a quite popular Youtube program that's, what, five, six years old, is on the same level as Forgotten Realms, a setting with literally hundreds of authors, thousands of books, published in multiple languages, that features on best seller lists pretty regularly, has spawned numerous video games, comic books, and who knows what else?

Yes. Critical Role is comparable in popularity to D&D. Like, as a whole. Millions of views per episode, widely credited with helping make 5e as successful as it is. Big enough that Colbert did a game with the DM for charity. Pervasive in D&D circles to the point where people whine about “the Mercer Effect”. I work autoparts in a large hick town, and I regularly see people with CR merch, CR stickers on their truck, and have dozens of times seen someone with a CR tattoo. Their comics are bestsellers. Their D&D book is one of the best selling books in the edition, last I checked.

Seriously? Like I said, I can walk into my small town library here in Japan and find Forgotten Realms books in Japanese. How many Critical Role things do you think I could find here?

In the library? No idea. Their first novel hasn’t been published yet, books obviously not being their primary medium.

But Japan certainly has critters, and I’m sure you could find CR merch pretty easily anywhere it’s easy to find fandom merch.

But, CR doesn't have about 50% of D&D players playing in it. Forgotten Realms does.

No numbers I’ve ever seen suggest that even close to half of all D&D players play in the forgotten realms.

Meanwhile, every single critter know Exandria. You can’t watch the show and be unfamiliar with the world.