Rich Baker on the Points of Light Setting.

[mhacdebhandia]

Since my 2E books are long since put away in a box somewhere and I don't have PDF copies, I can't directly refute you, but I would wager a sum of money on the Forgotten Realms being mentioned as the default setting in the core rulebooks, and having references to it in various places throughout the rules.

You'll have to pay up, then, because I came into the game in 1990, right at the beginning of the Second Edition era, and I had never even heard of the Forgotten Realms until I started picking up Dragon several years later.

The only setting-specific material in the Second Edition rulebooks is legacy Greyhawk material in the names of spells and the sample artifacts in the Dungeon Master's Guide - the Rod of Seven Parts, for instance.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Thanks, Remathilis. You just saved me a long post. (And hey, Darrin, how much money were you putting up there? )

I'll also note that 2e just happened to coincide with a pretty big burst of productivity on Ed Greenwood's part, and the kickoff of Steven Schend's and Eric Boyd's own substantial bibliographies as Realms writers, which may be where people get this impression. Actually, while the columns you listed (Wyrms of the North, Elminster's Guide, Wizards Three) were in Dragon, Realms content wasn't even that much of the magazine during 2e. (There aren't any Volo's Guides or Realms Ecologies articles in Dragon.)

I think the notion that you have to have a lot of custom rules to make a setting fit with a specific edition of D&D is erroneous, and is part of the unfortunate design decisions of 3rd edition. Say you have a specialized warrior group in one world with a certain name, then you have another world with another specialized warrior group that is thematically similar, the 3E approach is to make a prestige class for each one because they exist on different worlds. In my opinion, it makes a lot more sense to make all prestige classes completely generic and then say that in one world the Shining Knights of Zog are the Vorpal Dancing Rabit Slayer prestige class, as are the Mohawk Kilts of Viridiheim. Of course I also things that there are way, way, way too many prestige classes and feats scattered through all the accessory books in 3E. Now I can see specific exceptions, like the Artificer class in Eberron, which doesn't really fit well as a prestige class or modified Wizard.

That wasn't quite my point, actually (and I may have misstated it). You and I actually seem to agree on this one!

My point was, rather, that no single existing setting is going to adequately encapsulate an idealized core. Much as I'd love to see 4e written from the ground up to accommodate the Realms, I also know that certain elements of core design simply aren't going to allow that. I'd rather have a single ruleset that is *generic,* not setting-tied, and thus easy enough to tweak (in a setting book) to one of any number of given settings than have a strongly-fleshed-out default setting. The latter is the exact manifestation of "the game [twisted] to fit the rules," and honestly undesirable IMO.

 

[M.L. Martin]

I'm sorry, but I'm going to call you to task on this...

Second edition had no default setting. None. I have no idea where people get this memory from.

Possibly the "Game Wizards" column in DRAGON #153 that discussed the FORGOTTEN REALMS Adventures hardcover, where Jeff Grubb states that "the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting is TSR's official AD&D 2nd Edition world." (p. 99)

I seem to remember seeing similar statements elsewhere, though I can't give citations. It was, however, never more than marketing fluff and never reflected in the actual rulebooks.

Interesting . . . 1E and 3E used Greyhawk as a default (implicitly in 1E, explicitly in 3E), and while 2E didn't really have a setting, the few times the core books make reference to setting mythology (the only parts that come to mind are the "Artifacts and Relics" and "The Planes" sections of the DMG), it's Greyhawkian. 4E may actually be a break from this.

I shed no tears. Death to the Greyhawk/Great Wheel/Planescape Axis of Lawful Neutrality!

 

[The Little Raven]

You'll have to pay up, then, because I came into the game in 1990, right at the beginning of the Second Edition era, and I had never even heard of the Forgotten Realms until I started picking up Dragon several years later.

Correctomundo! 2E's "default setting" was pseudo-historical. All of the examples of classes were real-world folkore and mythology characters.

The only setting-specific material in the Second Edition rulebooks is legacy Greyhawk material in the names of spells and the sample artifacts in the Dungeon Master's Guide - the Rod of Seven Parts, for instance.

And this.

 

[The Little Raven]

Possibly the "Game Wizards" column in DRAGON #153 that discussed the FORGOTTEN REALMS Adventures hardcover, where Jeff Grubb states that "the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting is TSR's official AD&D 2nd Edition world." (p. 99)

Despite Jeff Grub saying that, they didn't make Realms the default setting in the core books, since absolutely nothing FR-related appeared in those books.

 

[M.L. Martin]

Despite Jeff Grub saying that, they didn't make Realms the default setting in the core books, since absolutely nothing FR-related appeared in those books.

Which is why I said

It was, however, never more than marketing fluff and never reflected in the actual rulebooks.

Correctomundo! 2E's "default setting" was pseudo-historical. All of the examples of classes were real-world folkore and mythology characters.

One of the things I missed in 3E--the game got too self-referential at some point, more concerned with being 'D&D' than with being open to mirroring folklore, mythology, and fiction. Granted, it's a continuum, and D&D's never been perfect at the latter, but 2E felt like there was more openness to doing something other than the 'archetypal 1E experience' than 3E did. I'm happy that it looks that 4E, while keeping some sacred cows and making innovations, also appears to be bringing this back to the table with things like the Feywild.

 

[Darrin Drader]

Damn you all for making me dig out my books. It turns out that the rules themselves do not in fact state that the Forgotten Realms is the default setting. There is an interesting passage in the Foreword in the redesigned PHB, which was released in 1995, in which Steve Winters says thus, "Since 2nd Edition was released, the AD&D game has grown in ways we never anticipated. We've traveled to a multitude of fabulous worlds, from the misty horror of Ravenloft, to the bazaars of Al-Qadim, and across the burning face of Dark Sun. Now the endless horizons of Planescape beckon to us, and beyond event hat we see spearpoints and banners waving above the gathering armies of Birthright. And of coursem presiding over it all is the grand and legendary Forgotten Realms."

"Presiding over" would imply that it is the default setting, or at least the most important one. I do realize that by that time they had taken the position in other publications that FR was default, and that was written a mere two years before TSR's demise, so at that time they were doing anything to push more product out the door (including releasing a new design of exactly the same set of rules).

Looking at these relics really brings a lot of things back, like how horrid the art was in the core 2nd edition books. Blech!

 

[Orius]

Our group is running something like Planegotten Eberhawk anyway... what would we do with a whole new setting?

Exactly. D&D doesn't need another setting, particularly one that's generic to begin with. It's already got Greyhawk, Mystara, the Realms, AND Eberron. If they needed a default setting, they surely would have gone with one of those. They have more than enough buckets already, they don't need another one.

 

[Orius]

Really? Neither of you has ever run or played in a setting where the drow were driven underground after a fight with the surface elves?

Never? Sorry, I have trouble believing that. I think it's safe to say that most of the old players of the game had some common experiences.

I suppose you never played in a D&D game that included a place called the Caves of Chaos, either? Or had the Axe of the Dwarvish Lords or any of the other classic artifacts show up?

There are some commonalities to "the D&D experience." And that's all Rich is talking about when he mentions the game's implied setting. If you've avoided all of them, your campaigns have been a bit odd, or I feel safe saying, at least atypical.

I think at the very least, most official products have been built on those assumptions where appropriate. As a result, I built parts of my campaign world with such assumptions in mind; it makes it easier to just plug a module or something into it without having to rewrite pages of fluff.

 

[Orius]

If all the fluff in the PHB is correct in 90% of all D&D worlds then you can answer a note posted on the FLGS's bulletin board asking for players, show up and you can make up a character even before you get there an be fairly certain that your character fits in with the world. You can start playing within minutes of showing up for the game.

I mean if I create a character who is an elven ranger who comes from some elven city in the woods and worships Correllon I know that it would have a place in every game I've ever played in. The DM might have to tell me the name of the city, but I wouldn't have to change anything about my character.

If there was no common fluff at all between worlds there would be no default assumptions and you'd have to read probably a good 50-60 pages of background information in order to be on the same level as someone already familiar with a DM's campaign.

And all too often, I can't get players to read more than 2 or 3 pages of campaign material, let alone a massive setting bible. And honestly, if I were in their place, I don't want to read a ton of campaign information right off the bat either. I want to roll up a character, and start killing goblins and taking their stuff, so I can move up to killing tougher enemies so I can take their better stuff. Ah, the vicious circle of D&D. It's more fun to learn about the campgin while playing. In any case, too much exotic campaign fluff is a barrier to new players.