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

[Lanefan]

Being perfectly honest, I think FR is massively over-hyped, and rather substantially under-delivers in terms of flavor, quality, and interest. I'm dead sure Mr. Greenwood's personal work is much better, but most implementations I see of FR are so shallow and generic, you'd never know it was FR if you just altered the names.

The late 1e-era box set (i.e. FR Mark I) was pretty good, and the 3e hardcover version was pretty good, but that's it. With having those two, I can happily ignore all the rest of it.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden.

Running it for my Monday night group, just started last night.

 

[Azzy]

I played in a FR campaign way back in 1e. I also have DMed LMoP/DoIP a couple years ago.

 

[jgsugden]

Heh. My old homebrew had a similar set up. "The Pillar of Hell" (in which resided the Nine Hells) existed within the Abyss.

Yeah - in the current interpretation of my lore, the Far Realm collided with the Prime Universe and left a crack in the center of Hell that goes to the Far Realm - the only true connecting point. The influence of the Far Realm corrupted Devils into Demons, created aberrations, shattered the Prime Material Plane to create the transitive planes, etc...

Now, the forces of the Abyss Wage their Blood War in order to capture the Gate to the Far Realm and Asmodeus does everything to protect it from them.

It really works for my setting as core lore.

 

[el-remmen]

The influence of the Far Realm corrupted Devils into Demons

Ha! The opposite of my idea. . . where some demons, chaotic expressions of evil in the Abyss, turned towards law and order and built the Pillar of Hell, which the demons are always trying to tear down.

 

[Hex08]

Yes, some of my favorite campaigns are from ones I ran using 2nd Edition in the Forgotten Realms. My most fondly remembered one was based on a group of heroes who hailed from Corm Orp. I preferred Greyhawk as a setting though. In 3.x I ran some in the Realms but not nearly as much, after that I moved on to other games and settings.

 

[haakon1]

One offs at GenCon online only. The DM’s seemed to run it as mostly generic.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The late 1e-era box set (i.e. FR Mark I) was pretty good, and the 3e hardcover version was pretty good, but that's it. With having those two, I can happily ignore all the rest of it.

I was more referring to the campaigns and stories set in it, rather than the published guidebooks or the like. For example, the Baldur's Gate series has barely anything to do with being in the Forgotten Realms, for example. There probably aren't many fans of FR who know nothing about the game series. But if there are, I suspect they would not be able to tell it was an FR story if they got a "names changed to protect the innocent" version told to them.

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.

 

[jdrakeh]

True, but familiarity breeds contempt. It has become my least favorite D&D setting by a large margin and, when I am forced to DM a game set there, I use the original grey box only and a handful of the FR accessories. Nothing else if I can help it.

 

[wedgeski]

I default to Forgotten Realms as the deep-pan base for whatever toppings my homebrew requires.