D&D 5E Campaign Settings 5e- Why I want to Forget the Realms

[Remathilis]

Wait. People still play in the Realms? *yawn*

I know! Everyone should have converted to Eberron years ago!

 

[Mad Zagyg]

You mentioned that you are converting (as am I!), but not how. Are you converting your older adventures to play in FR standard 5e setting, or are you converting 5e to play in Greyhawk?

I went the 5e to Greyhawk route. Some of the conversions (I just finished I3-I5) have been.... well, interesting. I'm not quite sure how they will play out. The monsters aren't so difficult, but it's the non-monster mechanics that I've been struggling with.

I am running 5e and really loving it.

The conversions I've made have been thematic in nature. I ran Lost Mines of Phandelver and ported into the region of the Principality of Naerie. The changes there were pretty easy, especially after I realized that the maps almost perfectly fit into that area.

Here's my converted map of the area [zoom in to the section near Naerie City]:
http://www.battlegroundgames.com/greyhawk/naerie_map_full.jpg

Having finished that adventure, I am now running Princes of the Apocalypse, which required significantly more work. My campaign is approximately 30+ years old, and I keep a meticulous timeline of events. I ran the original Temple of Elemental Evil back in 1985 and the sequel, Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil in 2000. They occurred approximately nineteen years apart in my Greyhawk timeline. Now I'm running Princes as if it were seven years after the events of RttToEE. Since I converted Red Larch into Hommlet, I needed to incorporate all of the important NPCs and events that happen in town to better match my known history of Hommlet. It was actually a substantial amount of work that basically resulted in a full document of Hommlet locations combined from all three sources. I'm three sessions in so far and things are going well.

Here's my converted map of the area around Hommlet with the Princes of the Apocalypse locations plugged in [potential SPOILERS, I guess]:
http://www.battlegroundgames.com/greyhawk/princes_regional.jpg

I know what you mean about converting older module's non-monster mechanics into 5e though. Some of the changes are not exactly intuitive.

 

[Greg K]

I know! Everyone should have converted to Eberron years ago!

I will never convert to Eberron (the same holds true for both Planescape and Spacejammer).

 

[the Jester]

But, that's not really true.

There's been TWO realm shaking events. Time of Troubles and the Spellplague. There was no major Realms change from 2e to 3e nor 3e to 3.5. And the changes in 5e have largely been smoothing over the changes that were made in 4e.

Hmm. Well, admittedly, I'm not a Realmlore guy, but I was under the impression that there was a RSE for the 3e transition- didn't they make major changes to the maps and stuff? Not just politically, but geographically? But maybe I'm wrong.

But the 4e RSE definitely counts. Just because it was mostly a 'remove-the-last-RSE' doesn't make it a not-RSE; just like the recent DC comics event that rewrote the whole shebang from Crisis on Infinite Earths onward was not a not-event because it retconned the retcons.

Greyhawk had the Greyhawk wars. So, you've got me there. Grey hawk has had one less RSE than the Realms. Given that Greyhawk has barely had anything written for it in twenty years, that's perhaps not terribly shocking.

But the Greyhawk Wars weren't a "Realms-Shaking Event" level event. They didn't do a wholesale rewrite of the pantheon or shove a new continent onto the world. They were... a bunch of wars. Yes, they shook up the political landscape, but I hardly think they're comparable to the stuff that happens when the FR gets ready for a new edition or whatever.

And what is not shoehorned into Greyhawk?

Oh, no doubt, GH sticks all kinds of stuff in there... but it feels so much more coherent to me, despite the mountains more Realmslore that's out there. It's a matter of style and taste; to me, GH just feels like it's more... discriminating?... in the way it uses stuff. FR just kind of tacks a god from a historical pantheon or another setting in the mix without thinking twice, while GH tends to at least put a dose of paint on it to make it fit better. But I agree, GH loots material from everywhere shamelessly.

They both are chock a block with Mary Sue NPC's.

The npcs in GH don't dominate the GH setting material like they do in FR. They also aren't a bunch of heroes. They're a bunch of mostly-neutral, mostly self-interested guys trying to stop major imbalances from arising. They might be ultrapowerful, but they are restrained and act almost entirely behind the scenes. Whereas I see FR's approach as more "Look how many of our npcs are superheroes and supervillains!" I vastly prefer a world with fewer uber-npcs.

Good grief, Greyhawk has a bloody GOD as a king.

Iuz? Yeah, he's a demigod, and I think the original idea for demigods in D&D was that they were "almost-gods" that lived on the Prime Material. But I could be wrong about this; that's just what I've inferred from various things in the old WoG boxed set.

Funny how the setting has "nothing original" but also has too much material.

You say this like there aren't mountains of material waiting to be used as a source.

You're more than entitled to not like the Realms. I get that. I really do. But you are not entitled to your own facts.

And I agree! But I don't agree on your reading of the facts. I think the differences are pretty deep, mostly in style and tone- but that's where the difference gets important. That is what makes me like WoG and dislike FR. And hell, I know a Renaissance style throw-it-all-in setting can work for me; I really like Eberron. But all the things that FR does poorly (for my taste) are things Eberron does well (npcs are low-level, the kitchen sink is piped in to the setting instead of sitting on top of the cake).

Like I said, it's a matter of taste and style. FR doesn't suit mine. That doesn't make it objectively bad; just subjectively bad (for me and others who feel similarly to me).

But again, the differences between FR and GH are far deeper than you credit. (Again, in my opinion.)

 

[Remathilis]

I will never convert to Eberron (the same holds true for both Planescape and Spacejammer).

Your loss.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Greg K]

Your loss.

Haha. Nope. Given my tastes in fantasy, my participating in those settings would be bad gaming (for myself). Participating in bad gaming (however one, personally, defines bad gaming) is always a loss. Avoiding bad gaming is always a win

 

[hawkeyefan]

I think this point is true. The one thing I have notices from the (now) many comments on these threads is that there is no clear divide when it comes to most campaign settings- Dark Sun, Eberron, etc. tend to be matters of individual taste.

But, for the most part, people either like GH and dislike FR, or vice versa. I haven't seen very many people say they are equally enthused about them. That observation makes me believe that you are correct- that there are deeper differences between the two campaign settings. I think a decent explanation for at least part of the difference is the relative neglect of GH vis-a-vis FR (some people prefer less "story," some people prefer more). Or maybe it goes to the stylistic differences from the beginning with Greenwood and Gygax. But it's there.

I like both. Each has its pros and cons, but all in all, I like both GH and FR. My current campaign takes place in both worlds, along with a few others, with Sigil as a central point. The party just got through a trip to the Vault of the Drow. They started on Toril, and have made their way to Sigil and from there to Oerth. Next is back to Toril and then probably off to Athas. I figure why settle for one world?

I think it is the old modules that are the difference, as someone mentioned above. All the old Gygax era stuff is just so entrenched in players' minds. They have memories dating back decades that are tied to those adventures. To me, that's a huge draw in favor of GH.

For FR, it's almost the opposite. There is an abundance of info available, which I think is great. I have no trouble finding info about Faerun that I can incorporate into my game. And I am no slave to what's published...I will unapologetically alter whatever I want to suit the needs of my game. In all the games I've played in FR, the only high level NPCs that my players have ever encounters have been Manshoon (a clone, actually) and Prince Hadrhune of Shade. There is no case where NPCs will ever overshadow my players in our game. I honestly don't even understand that criticism.

I think that GH has the originality of the novelty of the entire industry in its favor. Where as FR is more like "here's what someone else can do with this". They are certainly different, but also have plenty of similarities too.

It's all preference. Personally, I like it all, so I use it all. I don't need any more sourcebooks really at this point. Sure I'll pick up whatever they put out, but I don't feel I actually need any of it.

And I feel like I can't really be alone in that. We're all creative people....surely we can wrong something useful or fun out of any setting, even if it's just to repurpose for another setting we do like.

None of the FR content in any of the material so far published has really felt like anything more than window dressing.

 

[Mephista]

But, that's not really true.

There's been TWO realm shaking events. Time of Troubles and the Spellplague. There was no major Realms change from 2e to 3e nor 3e to 3.5. And the changes in 5e have largely been smoothing over the changes that were made in 4e.

Time of Troubles WAS the Realms changeover from 2e to 3e. Spellplague was the change to 4e, and the Sundering was the change from 4e to 5e (which is still conssidered a Realms-shaking event, though more spread out over time).

I believe the original death of Mystryl before she became Mystra also had a rather large cataclysm attached to it as part of the change from 1e to 2e, and the rearranging of how arcane magic worked.

What happens is thus - every time we have an edition change, there's a cataclysm to explain the setting and mechanical changes to the game. Its happened every time. 4e's Spell Plague and 3e's Time of Troubles were the largest, because those two editions made the largest changes to the Realms. 5e's Sundering helped reset the Realms back to earlier ideals that the other Cataclysms changed.

Hmm. Well, admittedly, I'm not a Realmlore guy, but I was under the impression that there was a RSE for the 3e transition- didn't they make major changes to the maps and stuff? Not just politically, but geographically? But maybe I'm wrong.

No, you're right, it was the Time of Troubles.

Your loss.

I think you mean "To each their own."

 

[hawkeyefan]

Time of Troubles was the changeover to 2nd edition, I believe.

If there was a reals shaking event for the transition to 3rd edition, it was the return of the Empire of Shade.

Spellplague into 4th and Sundering into 5th.

I believe...I could be wrong. As I said, I don't worry about it all that much, and I pretty much bowed out of 4th Edition before they released any FR content.