Most well known D&D setting among non-D&D RPG players

[Mouseferatu]

Basically, the only people that read FR novels are well, FR players (and Salvatore fans I must admit) whereas I've known many a DL novel fan who has never played a D&D game or hasn't played in several years.
Am I off my gourd in believing this?

Not off your guard, but certainly incorrect.

If FR stopped being a gaming property tomorrow, and focused solely on novels, it would continue to be massively successful. FR has a huge novel audience that has nothing to do with FR as a game setting.

I can't quote numbers to compare FR to Dragonlance. But it certainly wouldn't surprise me to learn that FR is more well known outside gaming circles.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

and that blasted drow has become the poster boy for unnecessarily powerful fantasy heroes in today's marketplace.

This is a little problematic. Drizzt isn't really that powerful or particularly overpowered. I don't like him, I think he manages to combine dull-ness with a form of peculiar emo that makes quite irritated, but is he more "OP" than your average fantasy character? I don't think so.

Even within the Realms of D&D fantasy, or even FR fantasy in particular, he's really just a ranger with two magic swords (and I mean, you ever met a high-level ranger who didn't?), a magic panther, good friends and a lot of luck, where plenty of FR characters prance around banging gods in public, changing reality, having vast arrays of vast magical powers, or just having some truly obnoxious rules-breaking ability or magic items.

 

[The Highway Man]

All of the Dragonlance books are NYT Best Sellers, as well, IIRC. That said, in personal experience, it seems that the FR novels get better circulation at the chain bookstores and are always placed in higher visibility areas.

Correct.

 

[Scribble]

Even within the Realms of D&D fantasy, or even FR fantasy in particular, he's really just a ranger with two magic swords (and I mean, you ever met a high-level ranger who didn't?), a magic panther, good friends and a lot of luck, where plenty of FR characters prance around banging gods in public, changing reality, having vast arrays of vast magical powers, or just having some truly obnoxious rules-breaking ability or magic items.

Depends on which edition you use for his stats... 2nd edition stats... Hey look he rolled his Drizzt is obviously cooler then you percentage chance to just kill you dead!

 

[Draksila]

I'll grant you that there are more powerful and obnoxious FR characters in literature, Ruin Explorer... the Mary Sue-ism that is Elminster being the prominent front-runner. I just don't think any of them have acheived the level of notoriety that Drizzt has.

And, yes, I'm likely being hard on the character. I just have a hard time seeing what is so fascinating about him; I tried reading the books and even made it all the way through the original trilogy, but he's just not that interesting to me. Other people's mileage may vary, obviously.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I'd say in my personal experience with nothing to back me up, that over the longest length of time it would be Dragonlance. But, FR is probably catching up/has already superseded Dragonlance.

I don't think the video-games in FR count for much, since people who play FR video-games generally already know of D&D.

 

[AllisterH]

Wow, thanks for the feedback.

I hadn't realized that FR had overtaken DL in terms of exposure. So when do people think this occured? Back in the late 80s or early at the turn of the century.

You know, I also have been hearing that even during 3E's heyday, the novel department was easily eclipsing the RPG side in terms of both revenue and profit. Was this really true and if so, when the hell did that occur?

(IF this is actually true, IT also means that no matter what happens to the D&D RPG, WOTC isn't giving up the license to D&D since the license still makes money for them)

re: Favourite novels
Definitely Ravenloft was my favourite. I'm slightly biased as Ravenloft was my favourite setting AND favourite module of all time, but I honestly think that if you for some reason had to pick a novel at random from the shelves, you are more likely to be happy with a random ravenloft novel than any other franchise.

re: Released campaign settings.
Do you think going forward with the "limited campaign release" for WOTC, we'll actually get new novels from said settings? I wouldn't mind seeing even a Spelljammer novel come out if/when Spelljammer gets released.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Well a while ago we heard word that they were re-releasing some old Dark Sun and Ravenloft books, so perhaps new books will be next.

Plus, there is Swordmage for the new-FR, which even with its previous existence and everything else, is technically now on the same footing as any other setting.

 

[Center-of-All]

When did FR overtake Dragonlance? I'd say no later than the release of Baldur's Gate 2. I get the feeling that some people here are underestimating how massively popular that game was. It hasn't lasted as long as Blizzard's popularity, but at the time it was Diablo II's #1 rival. By now, the Drizzt novels alone keep FR at least moderately relevant, while DL has very much declined in visibility.