D&D General "I have Played in or Run a Campaign Set in the Forgotten Realms" (a poll)

[Lanefan]

The Forgotten Realms is just so terribly, terribly bland in the implementations I've seen. Being a fantasy kitchen sink doesn't mean a setting needs to be unflavored oatmeal. My own home setting, for example, is very much a kitchen sink (though Arabian Nights/Golden Age of Islam-flavored, rather than pseudo-medieval faux-European) and I would say it is not at all bland.

Of course you'd say that. It's your setting, and you're invested in it.

Same for mine. I'd personally say it's not at all bland; but that's because I made it, I know it well, and I know what it has going for it. That said, were I to bang my setting together, put it in a box, and sell it for all I know many might think it just as bland as FR.

 

[el-remmen]

It'll be interesting to compare the FR numbers from this poll with the Greyhawk numbers of the poll I just posted.

 

[Thanriyon]

Played FR in 1st. 2nd, 3rd edition and more recently in AL.
Have been DM'g an Undermountain campaign for 2 years now, (currently on level 13 of Undermountain!)

 

[Gradine]

I came close to it, playing in the initial session of a LMoP campaign, but that campaign fizzled after the first session. Otherwise, to my actual shock, I can't say that I have played in a FR campaign.

 

[Blue]

I played a lot of FR back in AD&D 2nd times. I played a bard, but every other player at the table I joined knew so much more about FR because they had read a bunch of novels and such. I really worked to up my FR knowledge.

Then I played it with other DMs in later editions, and found that knowing a lot of the lore was a trap. Because if the DM doesn't know a specific piece of lore it's not true, and you don't know what exactly the DM knows. You look at big plots with big NPCs, and find out later that because you had knowledge the DM didn't, you've been looking in the wrong direction. Combined with not having information the DM expected everyone to have so you also couldn't connect the real dots.

I played Fr in 3e, 3.5, 4e and 5e. I've grown to hate it. It has too much lore, a real barrier to entry. You can't effectively use "I'm running in the FR" as a shortcut to a shared understanding with people you haven't gamed with, it's actively misleading. And I've grown to actively despise the thrice damned kitchen sink nature of it. Take races like the Warforged which have a rich and connected history in Eberron where they come from, and just snip it off until you have just the mechanics of the race and dump it in with a minimal explanation and localization.

I hope never to have to play in the Forgotten Realms again. Ever. But I probably will, with a DM wanting to run a hardcover campaign set there.

 

[Seramus]

I ran FR pretty extensively after I played Pool of Radiance in 88. But somewhere around 3.5E I branched off and just did homebrew settings, with the occasional Athas.

 

[Ath'kethin]

Simple question. . .

True or False: "I have Played in or Run a Campaign Set in the Forgotten Realms"

By campaign, I mean any ongoing multi-session game with the same characters - so mini-campaigns are fine, but not one-offs.

If you want to add details about which edition/version/changes you made (or were made in the version you played a character in), go for it!

If we count Al-Qadim, which I absolutely do not, then my answer is yes.

But since I do not count Al-Qadim, and have always both run and viewed it as completely distinct from the Realms, my answer is a solid "no."

 

[wicked cool]

I have played in multiple games set in the Forgotten Realms. When I was running campaign settings straight I mostly did Greyhawk and Ravenloft and left the Realms to be my friends' domain to run.

I like a lot of elements of the Realms, but mostly just incorporate stuff into my mashup homebrew setting as a DM. I particularly like a lot of god elements and include them as distinct pantheons in my setting. Red Wizards are some of my favorite D&D villains although I have not used them a lot in my games (Hazlik in Ravenloft came up occasionally).

How did you use hazlik?

 

[MostlyHarmless42]

I have done both. I played in a Fae'run game (set in the Lake of Steam) and ran Waterdeep Dragon Heist. To be honest I don't really like the setting, but I've come to enjoy it a bit more after doing Dragon Heist.

 

[Voadam]

How did you use hazlik?

When I was running Ravenloft he mostly came up as a reference about a magocracy in the south east. When the wizards in the two groups I ran through Ravenloft campaigns asked about known wizards he would come up along with the Wizard-King of the North. They never followed up by going to Hazlan's realm, instead focusing on hooks in other domains.