D&D General Forgotten Realms - why do you still like running games here? +

[Desdichado]

1. Why
2. How do you approach the setting (everything is in, stick to one edition, gray box only etc.)?
3. How long has it been your campaign setting of choice?
4. What are your favorite game supplements?
5. Do you like any of the novels? Which ones? And do you use the novels for game material?

I don't run games in the Forgotten Realms, because I only ever really run games in my own homebrews, but I do have a strange love-hate but more love fondness for the Forgotten Realms, and I've recently embarked on a project to read (or re-read, for many) every single 3e Forgotten Realms product ever printed. There are plenty of things that I also don't like about the setting, but since this is a + thread, I won't mention them.

1. Why? Because I always like the Salvatore novels. I also recently reread the Halfling Gem trilogy, and I'm going to soon re-read the Drizzt prequel trilogy, Legacy or whatever it was called (which I bought in omnibus trade paperback a couple of years ago.) Time second time around, I don't imagine that I'll go farther into the series than that, but I still hold those six books out as among the better examples of shared world spec fiction.
2. I'm more familiar with the 3e version of it than any other, so I tend to think of it that way. When I do use FR elements, though, I'm more likely to just borrow them and throw them in another setting of my own devising. Some of my favorite elements, like the Red Wizards, etc. don't lend themselves as well to this, but y'know. File those serial numbers off and do your best, I guess.
3. Technically, it never has been, but I've liked it more or less, at least, since the Crystal Shard was published. And the 5e game that I'm playing in is one of the pre-written campaigns, so it's set on the Sword Coast region.
4. Unapproachable East (2003), Serpent Kingdoms (2004), City of Splendors: Waterdeep (2005). Do the 5e campaigns that are set in FR count? I like reading those campaigns.
5. As noted above. I've also read some Paul S. Kemp novels (Twilight War trilogy, iirc) and a few others here and there, but no, I tend to think of novels and game products as completely separate, and don't even necessarily think of them as occupying the same setting, even though I know that they do.

 

[Piperken]

So for those of you who still choose to run their games here:

1. Why
2. How do you approach the setting (everything is in, stick to one edition, gray box only etc.)?
3. How long has it been your campaign setting of choice?
4. What are your favorite game supplements?
5. Do you like any of the novels? Which ones? And do you use the novels for game material?

1. In my case, the table took their characters from their at school game that was running Hoard of the Dragon Queen, just after they had gone up to Level 2.
2. Mostly current, though I've liberally borrowed from the Forgotten Realms wiki, the Obsidian Portal, and converted some OSR jam modules into faction missions.
3. A little over a year.
4. Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, The Alexandrian Remix, Baldur's Gate 3 (e.g. Elminster, Volo, and a few personalities) and above.
5. I don't feel like I've read any. I'd probably use a novel as a kernel for something.

 

[Ibrandul]

1. High-magic, versatile setting (there is no single “high concept”) with very deep bench of supplements to draw from.

2. Everything is in, but I don’t sweat it. That is, I don’t change lore on purpose but don’t usually spend too much time fact-checking myself or “undoing” discrepancies from published material.

3. Ten years.

4. Grey box, FR Atlas, Ruins of Undermountain, City of Splendors box, Faiths & Avatars, Cloak & Dagger, 3e FRCS, Silver Marches, Serpent Kingdoms…

5. Novels are just setting supplements that are easier to read. I won’t name the mediocre-to-poor novelists to have published in the setting, but I will say that (with a notable exception or three) the authors who published more than, say, five novels in the setting tend to be pretty great. That would include Cunningham, Evans, Baker, Byers, Grubb & Novak, and Kemp. Between them, that’s a total of more than fifty novels I would go to bat for, and it’s not an exhaustive list.

 

[Parmandur]

Forgotten Realms started as Ed Greenwood's crossover fanfiction playground, so basically there is room for any sort of Fantasy story, somewhere, and often with some really fun and creative hooks.

Unlike a lot of RPG Settongs, which are made for commercial usage, it's origin in person al amusement and then actual play gives it a certain quality, very homey.

 

[bloodtide]

1. Why

I like the Lore Heavy Setting

2. How do you approach the setting (everything is in, stick to one edition, gray box only etc.)?

I run games "back in time", before 1375DR, and ignore new dung.

3. How long has it been your campaign setting of choice?

Forever.

4. What are your favorite game supplements?

Lords of Darkness, The Magister, The Seven sisters, Cult of the Dragon, all the Volo books and guides.

5. Do you like any of the novels? Which ones? And do you use the novels for game material?

Yes. Er....all of them most of them. Even the "bad" ones are okay stories.... Yes, a lot.

 

[Epic Meepo]

To answer the questions in the OP:

1. I'm fond of the Forgotten Realms for nostalgic reasons. The original grey box was my first exposure to any campaign setting (and to the idea of a campaign setting poster map). I was a kid at the time, and I didn't really understand what a campaign setting was until I looked through the contents of that box. All in all, I'd say Ed Greenwood's early work was a great introduction to the concept.

2. When I run a campaign in the Realms, I take the "make the Realms your own" mantra to heart. I pull top-level concepts like deities, factions, and geography from official materials (and if I have a player who really knows the lore, I try not to change any elements important to that player's character concept). My campaign is otherwise set in an alternative Forgotten Realms timeline.

3. I first ran a campaign in the Realms sometime around the late 1980's/early 1990's. I continued running games set there until the end the 3e era. I took I hiatus during the 4e era to run a few Pathfinder games in a home-brew setting. Sadly, I haven't had a consistent gaming group since then. I've played a bit of 5e every now and again, but I haven't had a chance to run anything for it.

4. Despite my fondness for the original gray box, I consider the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting book for 3e to be the high-water mark for good campaign setting design (dodgy edits to the setting map not withstanding). It's possible some other campaign setting book has matched the sheer volume of useful content in the FCRS, but I doubt any campaign setting book will ever surpass it.

5. I found many of the novels entertaining when I was a kid, but they aren't really to my taste these days. I do consult various novels every now and again if I want to learn setting information that never made it into an official RPG product. (I know there's a fan wiki for that sort of thing, but if I'm working on something which references obscure setting lore, I want to read that lore in a primary source, such as a novel.)

 

[Voadam]

So for those of you who still choose to run their games here:

1. Why

I like the Realms. The gods and their organizations from the 2e god books are great material to draw on. I find the Red Wizards as D&D Stygian sorcerers very evocative in their various incarnations, 1e pulp Conan 2e High magic magocrats, 3e evil magical merchants, and even 5e undead dominated. I had a few Dragon articles with things like named magic swords as my first intro but when the Gray Box came out I left it for my friends to make it their setting as I had made Greyhawk the setting for my longterm 1e campaign. The FR supplements and novels were fun though and I eventually got some things like N5 Under Illefarn which I really liked and then later the Forgotten Realms Adventures with its fantastic specialty priests presentation and then later I really enjoyed the FR 2e god books. The 3e Campaign Setting is something I got right away and it is great for both itself and as a resource for other settings. I also really enjoyed reading the timeline history book The Grand History of the Realms.

2. How do you approach the setting (everything is in, stick to one edition, gray box only etc.)?

I mostly use elements of the setting in my homebrew mashup campaign setting. Mostly FR gods as pantheons in the world and the excellent lore from the 2e books. I mostly stick to 1e-3e lore, I second hand know about the 4e and 5e lore but I prefer the stuff I have mostly. I do have some 5e FR modules, Rhyme of the Frost Maiden in particular, I am tempted to run in my setting or straight though.

3. How long has it been your campaign setting of choice?

I have included elements in my setting for 17 years now.

4. What are your favorite game supplements?

Faiths & Avatars, Powers & Pantheons, and Demihuman Deities. The high point for me of D&D books talking about gods for any setting and for any edition.

5. Do you like any of the novels? Which ones? And do you use the novels for game material?

Oh yeah, I have read maybe 2 dozen of them? The Moonshae trilogy, the Crystal Shard trilogy, the Drizzt homeland trilogy, the Empires and Maztica trilogies, some anthologies and some Harper novels. I enjoyed them, parts I have ragged on (Drizzt's special double down maneuver comes to mind ). I have only used them as sort of mood stuff for myself, nothing specific from them has come up in games.

 

[haakon1]

1. Why
2. How do you approach the setting (everything is in, stick to one edition, gray box only etc.)?
3. How long has it been your campaign setting of choice?
4. What are your favorite game supplements?
5. Do you like any of the novels? Which ones? And do you use the novels for game material?

I have never run FR, and only played FR in Gen Con Online and BG3.

But plus thread, so I’ll answer why I’m interested.

1. Inescapable in D&D. More than the default setting, it’s sometimes described as THE D&D setting.

2. Gray Box. Based on advice from my only player who is an FR fan, I set the time in FR for a retired PC who went there to be current in my campaign = now in the Gray Box (1356 or something?). But also, selected 5e events like “Descent into Avernus” will in theory happen soon.

3. Not yet. But I started to get interested (and start buying new things and a Gray Box) around 2021.

Why then: reading old FR adventures in Dungeon, the HAT movie, and some interesting 5e FR stuff.

Why never before: Dropped out of D&D around 2e launch, and saw FR and 2e, and the ouster of all things AD&D/Greyhawk/Gygax, as the same thing. When I returned to D&D 29 years ago, it was AD&D golden age stuff 1977–1987 only.

4. Not sure yet.

5. I haven’t read them.

 

[earthsea_wizard]

Hopefully not opening a can of worms- but does everyone still running the realms run their drow and orcs in the traditional sense (monoculture and always bad enough to kill) or have you altered this in your world? Not a judgement statement, but it seems a lot of people have warmed up to not running races this way (either due to ethical implications or simply because it can become dull over time), while some have strong arguments for the traditional approach. It seems to me that altering these approaches has an impact on a setting like the Realms (and Greyhawk) more than it does on some others.

If you've changed your approach, how has it affected your version of the realms?

 

[gban007]

Hopefully not opening a can of worms- but does everyone still running the realms run their drow and orcs in the traditional sense (monoculture and always bad enough to kill) or have you altered this in your world? Not a judgement statement, but it seems a lot of people have warmed up to not running races this way (either due to ethical implications or simply because it can become dull over time), while some have strong arguments for the traditional approach. It seems to me that altering these approaches has an impact on a setting like the Realms (and Greyhawk) more than it does on some others.

If you've changed your approach, how has it affected your version of the realms?

Being 3e based, I feel Forgotten Realms already supported change as such, with the kingdom of many arrows (was disappointed that this was changed later) and Eilistraee and her drow followers, and allows better than some places will have cultures of straight evil drow and orcs, but other areas may be more nuanced.