D&D 5E 5e isn't a Golden Age of D&D Lorewise, it's Silver at best.

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Good grief, how could you possibly even begin to scratch the surface of that?

Raises hand.

I'm a new DM. At least, I am compared to most of the rest of you guys (I've been DMing for about 6 years). 5e is the first and only TTRPG I've ever played, and when I started getting into the hobby, I tried to learn everything I could about D&D's main setting. So, I bought and read all of the 5e Forgotten Realms adventures and the SCAG, I read a lot of the Wiki, read the first 10ish Drizzt novels, and watched hundreds of hours worth of FR lore videos on Youtube.

I devoted hundreds of hours of my life to learn more as much as I could about the Forgotten Realms' lore as I could, and I barely scratched the surface. Eventually, I just gave up after realizing that I would never be able to learn it all and there were other settings that were way more user friendly than the Forgotten Realms.

And that's bad. It's a really bad thing to have your main setting be that ridiculously impossible to understand. I'm honestly baffled that the Forgotten Realms continues to be the core D&D setting. It's stupidly difficult to get into. Eberron is a piece of cake compared to the Forgotten Realms. Wildemount is 10 times easier than Eberron is.

Lore is fine. I like lore. Netheril is cool. Undermountain is cool. Chult and Icewind Dale are interesting adventuring locations, I guess. The Time of Troubles is an interesting idea, too. The Thousand Year War is awesome. Fantasy Gotham is nice. The fact that every god in the Forgotten Realms is just objectively evil is kind of a cool concept for a D&D world (even if this is just an unintended consequence of the Wall of the Faithless). There's quite a bit about the Forgotten Realms that I either sincerely enjoy or find intriguing. But all of it is buried under a deluge of endless information that it's nearly impossible to get to the good parts of the setting because you're getting links to articles about turnips or stuck in the convoluted metaplot about how Mystra died this week.

Sturgeon's Law means that not only is the vast majority of the lore going to be crap anyway, it will be harder to find the good bits of lore when there's a ton of lore because then there's more crap that you have to pick through.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Sure, they do! One of the best parts of any campaign Setting product, even one that is being cut up for pieces and parts.

Maps are maps. A detailed and high-quality map is always a good thing, but they don't count as lore. They're just maps.

Monster stat blocks are a part of many campaign setting products, but they don't count as lore. They're mechanics. It would be valid to complain that the SCAG doesn't have monster stat blocks for Sword Coast-specific/centric monsters, but it would be weird to say "the lore in the SCAG is so bad! They don't even have monster stats for the Phaerimm!"

 

[Parmandur]

I'm honestly baffled that the Forgotten Realms continues to be the core D&D setting.

Because it's popular, and it is popular because it is generic enougb that people can ge tit withoutbreally divong deep, and highly detailed enough thst a DM can make a ything theybeant out-of the pieces.

I think in 5E, WotC has done a masterful job providing the FR in digestible form, through SCAG and modular regional Settings in the Adventures

 

[Micah Sweet]

Serpent Kingdoms was the best hyper focused FR 3e supplement. This opinion brought to you by the letter "My favorite bad guys are yuan-ti".

Also my favorite FR supplement.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Raises hand.

I'm a new DM. At least, I am compared to most of the rest of you guys (I've been DMing for about 6 years). 5e is the first and only TTRPG I've ever played, and when I started getting into the hobby, I tried to learn everything I could about D&D's main setting. So, I bought and read all of the 5e Forgotten Realms adventures and the SCAG, I read a lot of the Wiki, read the first 10ish Drizzt novels, and watched hundreds of hours worth of FR lore videos on Youtube.

I devoted hundreds of hours of my life to learn more as much as I could about the Forgotten Realms' lore as I could, and I barely scratched the surface. Eventually, I just gave up after realizing that I would never be able to learn it all and there were other settings that were way more user friendly than the Forgotten Realms.

And that's bad. It's a really bad thing to have your main setting be that ridiculously impossible to understand. I'm honestly baffled that the Forgotten Realms continues to be the core D&D setting. It's stupidly difficult to get into. Eberron is a piece of cake compared to the Forgotten Realms. Wildemount is 10 times easier than Eberron is.

Lore is fine. I like lore. Netheril is cool. Undermountain is cool. Chult and Icewind Dale are interesting adventuring locations, I guess. The Time of Troubles is an interesting idea, too. The Thousand Year War is awesome. Fantasy Gotham is nice. The fact that every god in the Forgotten Realms is just objectively evil is kind of a cool concept for a D&D world (even if this is just an unintended consequence of the Wall of the Faithless). There's quite a bit about the Forgotten Realms that I either sincerely enjoy or find intriguing. But all of it is buried under a deluge of endless information that it's nearly impossible to get to the good parts of the setting because you're getting links to articles about turnips or stuck in the convoluted metaplot about how Mystra died this week.

Sturgeon's Law means that not only is the vast majority of the lore going to be crap anyway, it will be harder to find the good bits of lore when there's a ton of lore because then there's more crap that you have to pick through.

Perhaps a wiki saying everything that ever happened from 5000 sources is not the best way to introduce a setting?

Maybe they could make some sort of setting guide with a nice map and general overview of the state of the world as it is currently? Then as you explore you have a solid base to attach your new knowledge to.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Perhaps a wiki saying everything that ever happened from 5000 sources is not the best way to introduce a setting?

Maybe they could make some sort of setting guide with a nice map and general overview of the state of the world as it is currently? Then as you explore you have a solid base to attach your new knowledge to.

Such a product would certainly be...unprecedented.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Because it's popular, and it is popular because it is generic enougb that people can ge tit withoutbreally divong deep, and highly detailed enough thst a DM can make a ything theybeant out-of the pieces.

I think in 5E, WotC has done a masterful job providing the FR in digestible form, through SCAG and modular regional Settings in the Adventures

This is another "chicken or the egg" scenario. Is the Forgotten Realms popular because it's generic (which I don't buy, because there's plenty of other detailed generic fantasy worlds from D&D's past), or is it popular because it's the main setting and has the most products detailing it over any other official setting in the most popular edition of the game?

I'm not convinced that the Forgotten Realms is popular because people like it more than other settings, I'm more convinced that it's popular because it keeps getting used as the core setting and there are so many products supporting it.

Perhaps a wiki saying everything that ever happened from 5000 sources is not the best way to introduce a setting?

Maybe they could make some sort of setting guide with a nice map and general overview of the state of the world as it is currently? Then as you explore you have a solid base to attach your new knowledge to.

I didn't get introduced to the FR with the wiki. I started with the SCAG and all of the adventures. I moved on to the wiki because there were still a bunch of parts of the setting that didn't get covered in the books.

And I'm not convinced that having your core setting be one that needs dozens of books of lore in order to explain its deal is a good idea. A simpler setting would be a better core setting (and I don't like the concept of "core settings" in the first place).

 

[Older Beholder]

I can understand that people would see past editions as a golden age of lore. Although I don't feel the need to label such things with colours.

When I think of 2E for example, I think of box sets. Lots and lots of box sets, for a vast variety of campaign settings, brimming with new worlds and new ideas. Some great, some not so great. My old 2E box sets still take up more shelf space than all my 5E books.
And while I have fond memories of those worlds and the campaigns and characters they inspired, it's not always as I remember when I look through that material now. I was surprised when I went back to Ravenloft : Realms of Terror, that the book in the box is only like 144 pgs, and 8 of those were just family tree charts.

5E feels like it has taken a different approach, and has moved away from extensive lore, but there's still plenty of great stuff. The lore for 5E I find is just as inspiring as with any previous edition. Just as a recent example I was reading the monster lore for Stone Cursed where it mentioned that they are created from a petrified person using a ritual involving Cockatrice feathers and Basilisk blood, and a couple of adventure ideas started writing themselves in my head from that almost immediately.

 

[teitan]

And that's bad. It's a really bad thing to have your main setting be that ridiculously impossible to understand. I'm honestly baffled that the Forgotten Realms continues to be the core D&D setting. It's stupidly difficult to get into. Eberron is a piece of cake compared to the Forgotten Realms. Wildemount is 10 times easier than Eberron is.

I don't think it's all that ridiculous. It gets overwhelming if you try to sort it all out but essentially it's pretty simple when you just stick to the SCAG and what is in the adventures for 5e. FR is remarkably easy to get into but only becomes overwhelming when someone gets obsessed with continuity/lore, like in comic books. If you just pull up the history section and take it for what it is FR is what it is and nothing more needs to be understood. As the core 5e setting the SCAG is fine, it is a perfect amount of information to introduce someone to the setting where the majority of adventures and other media, video games, novels, etc take place. Baldur's Gate? SCAG. Candlekeep? SCAG. Waterdeep? SCAG. Neverwinter? SCAG. Sword Coast? SCAG. Undermountain? SCAG. It provides enough information to understand threats like the Zhentarim and the Red Wizards and their homeland for a DM to be able to run with it and make these things their own.

It is when you get into that comic book like need to understand the continuity of the lore where it gets confusing, contradictory and overwhelming. But FR is a simple, easy to use, easy to understand setting. If you've played Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter, Icewind Dale or any other D&D video game, you know FR really and that's why they used it. It's recognizable and it is their best selling campaign setting. I used to lament the lack of a respectable FRCS in 5e but now, I would still like a nice book like the Eberron book but it's really not necessary but I don't think the wiki is a great answer either. The SCAG is the first time since 1e that a DM has been able to actually own the Realms but if they did a book they really probably should drop some of the less useful material that was featured in some of the boxed sets and the FRCS and not use that tiny font.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

. . . Do maps count as "lore"?

Yes, they can contain a ton of info, condensed, such as cities and depending on the map key a ton of other stuff.