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Message: <blockquote data-quote="an_idol_mind" data-source="post: 5939888" data-attributes="member: 43749">In my experience, folks dislike Elminster not because he's so powerful but because the published material for the Realms really shoves him in everybody's face. He began as a spokesperson for the Realms, but sometime during the 2nd edition era, he became pretty insufferable.Take a look at any of his novels. Find a female character. Skip ahead 20 pages, and odds are good that said female character is stripped bare and offering herself to Elminster.Or take a look at modules like the awful Time of Troubles modules, where Elminster basically exists to mock the PCs and force them to follow the plot and where we get treated to passages like this:Yeah, Elminster can be used well in a game. Yes, he is sometimes written well. But if anybody played the game in the 1990s, they got this stuff shoved down their throat ALL THE TIME. And while you could ignore all the supplements that talked about how funny, powerful, wise, and handsome he was, ignoring Realmslore kinda misses part of the fun about the Realms.It's not really about Elminster's power - if it was, folks would hate the Simbul even more. It really boils down to some really bad writing that, while it is getting far into the rearview these days, still leaves a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths.</blockquote>