D&D 5E Is the Forgotten Realms experiencing a new Golden Age now that its NOT the default 5e setting anymore?
Henadic Theologian
Legend
jgsugden
Legend
It is not my primary setting (I have an extensive Homebrew), but I have run adventures since the 1980s - and I pretty much always come back to 1357 DR with young adventurers exploration of my version of the Haunted Halls of Eveningstar. There is no Kelemvor in my setting. No Time of Troubles or Spell Plague.
And that makes all the difference.
It is a stable setting with a unified vision behind it rather than being a mishmash of the ideas of scores or authors, designers and suits. I've evolved it a bit to accept my ideas for how to move it forward ... but it is not the chaotic and insonsistent mess that the modern FR is.
1989? 1987.
Shardstone
Hero
This is clearly false since the Forgotten Realms is the biggest, most popular setting due to being the default for several editions, and Nentir Vale, being former default, produced a lot of things the entire IP uses to great effect (Tieflings, Raven Queen, etc). Being default setting is big -- it's the setting most people first "taste" D&D with, or at least learn the base concepts through. Let's not pretend that being the most talked about, most adventured, and most written-about setting in the franchise by a significant margin is "meaningless."
Calling it "default" or arguing over whether it is the "default" is what is meaningless. It doesn't matter. You are absolutely correct that most of the WotC adventure paths were written in Faerun locations and that odds are that people who do not create their own setting for their game will use Faerun over other previously published ones. No argument there. But so what? Why does that matter? It doesn't. So the folks here having pissing matches over "Faerun is the default setting!" "No, it isn't, it's the D&D Multiverse!" so on and so forth are just arguing over nothing. Because no one will eventually accede to the other and say "Okay, you are right.", and even if they did... again, so what? That's not going to change WotC's behavior. WotC will still to do what they do regardless of what gets "agreed upon" here on the boards.
Of course people are still going to argue here about it if for no other reason that it's something easy to argue about and why else are all of us posters here if not to just argue meaningless arguments because we have nothing better to do? LOL! Heck... MY post was a meaningless post too! I can admit that. My post that asked "Why are you all wasting your time arguing about this when it doesn't matter?" is just as much a post of me just filling my time as your post was countering mine. So it's cool. We're just talking for the sake of talking because why not? Beats working.
Shardstone
Hero
Well it does matter IMO, because the default setting is what the focus of the adventure, book, video game, and similar materials are on. This, in turn, defines the feel of the overall game for a lot of people. If the default setting was Planescape and not FR, that might indicate a change in overall tone, color pallate, narrative aesthetics, character options, and so on. And the growing multiverse-focus is, IMO, a response to people's desire for more homebrew, more race options, and a desire to always new cool new things in Fantasy. However, I disagree with OP that the FR isn't the default setting, but yeah, I'd say it isn't meaningless that FR is default setting.Calling it "default" or arguing over whether it is the "default" is what is meaningless. It doesn't matter. You are absolutely correct that most of the WotC adventure paths were written in Faerun locations and that odds are that people who do not create their own setting for their game will use Faerun over other previously published ones. No argument there. But so what? Why does that matter? It doesn't. So the folks here having pissing matches over "Faerun is the default setting!" "No, it isn't, it's the D&D Multiverse!" so on and so forth are just arguing over nothing. Because no one will eventually accede to the other and say "Okay, you are right.", and even if they did... again, so what? That's not going to change WotC's behavior. WotC will still to do what they do regardless of what gets "agreed upon" here on the boards.
Of course people are still going to argue here about it if for no other reason that it's something easy to argue about and why else are all of us posters here if not to just argue meaningless arguments because we have nothing better to do? LOL! Heck... MY post was a meaningless post too! I can admit that. My post that asked "Why are you all wasting your time arguing about this when it doesn't matter?" is just as much a post of me just filling my time as your post was countering mine. So it's cool. We're just talking for the sake of talking because why not? Beats working.
I'm not going to engage with the "all our convos are meaningless" rhetoric because it is unironically meaningless. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to respond or care about you saying all written communication on this topic is meaningless.
That depends on hat your definition of “is” is.Calling it "default" or arguing over whether it is the "default" is what is meaningless. It doesn't matter. You are absolutely correct that most of the WotC adventure paths were written in Faerun locations and that odds are that people who do not create their own setting for their game will use Faerun over other previously published ones. No argument there. But so what? Why does that matter? It doesn't. So the folks here having pissing matches over "Faerun is the default setting!" "No, it isn't, it's the D&D Multiverse!" so on and so forth are just arguing over nothing. Because no one will eventually accede to the other and say "Okay, you are right.", and even if they did... again, so what? That's not going to change WotC's behavior. WotC will still to do what they do regardless of what gets "agreed upon" here on the boards.
Of course people are still going to argue here about it if for no other reason that it's something easy to argue about and why else are all of us posters here if not to just argue meaningless arguments because we have nothing better to do? LOL! Heck... MY post was a meaningless post too! I can admit that. My post that asked "Why are you all wasting your time arguing about this when it doesn't matter?" is just as much a post of me just filling my time as your post was countering mine. So it's cool. We're just talking for the sake of talking because why not? Beats working.
You don't have to. And there's no reason to. Just like there's no real reason for me to write this response back.
But we do it because it's a few minutes of entertainment for each of us to craft a post and then post it, even though we both know that our actions are not creating any tangible results. Neither of us is changing the other's mind and we certainly are not impacting anyone else in this thread (other than perhaps clogging it a little with our sidebar). But that doesn't mean we still can't enjoy ourselves writing it. I know I do!
Shardstone
Hero
Ok.You don't have to. And there's no reason to. Just like there's no real reason for me to write this response back.
But we do it because it's a few minutes of entertainment for each of us to craft a post and then post it, even though we both know that our actions are not creating any tangible results. Neither of us is changing the other's mind and we certainly are not impacting anyone else in this thread (other than perhaps clogging it a little with our sidebar). But that doesn't mean we still can't enjoy ourselves writing it. I know I do!
The key to good relationships is understanding that all arguments are conversations; but not all conversations are arguments.
Back in my day D&D and RPGs were about joy and whimsey and having fun....and most importantly having the kind of fun you wanted to have.
If you liked Faerun but thought that Fizban was more fun than Elminster; you picked the one you wanted to interact with and that was that. If this island was on Oerth and that castle was in Mystara, you just penciled in the stuff you liked where you liked it.
Even if there is no default setting; the fact that Wotc doesn't really create anything new and just keeps recycling old material over and over...and then tells us there is no cannon... means that they will use the names that go with the places they are writing about. Otherwise people on some forum (not this forum) (not us people) will argue about where the jungle of this or the plains of that are REALLY located.
A more productive use of our time might be answering the question..."Can't they just come up with new stuff for us to argue over vs. us arguing over all of this recycled material?"
Now the conversation will devolve into how 4e was the worst and how Wotc is something something........
Enjoy your Friday gamers.
Back in my day D&D and RPGs were about joy and whimsey and having fun....and most importantly having the kind of fun you wanted to have.
If you liked Faerun but thought that Fizban was more fun than Elminster; you picked the one you wanted to interact with and that was that. If this island was on Oerth and that castle was in Mystara, you just penciled in the stuff you liked where you liked it.
Even if there is no default setting; the fact that Wotc doesn't really create anything new and just keeps recycling old material over and over...and then tells us there is no cannon... means that they will use the names that go with the places they are writing about. Otherwise people on some forum (not this forum) (not us people) will argue about where the jungle of this or the plains of that are REALLY located.
A more productive use of our time might be answering the question..."Can't they just come up with new stuff for us to argue over vs. us arguing over all of this recycled material?"
Now the conversation will devolve into how 4e was the worst and how Wotc is something something........
Enjoy your Friday gamers.
