D&D 5E Settings played in D&D: cause or effect?

[Morrus]

From my transcript of the Gamehole Con panel was an interesting tidbit about the settings played in D&D.



It got me to thinking though. All the products so far have been set in the Realms, as are the Adventurer's League items. If all the adventures are set in the Realms, is it surprising that the majority of folks are playing in the Realms?

It's kinda presented as "we produce for the Realms because everybody plays in it"; but is there an element of "everybody plays in the Realms because we produce for it"?

If the three adventures so far had all been set in Greyhawk, would the survey result say that 35% of people play Greyhawk?

 

[Larrin]

I think forgotten realms has better name recognition, especially to people that got into D&D in the late 1990s-early 2000s, and so even if the first three adventures had been greyhawk, I think that forgotten realms could very likely still have had a larger piece of that pie chart than greyhawk.

In my experience, I've always known when I was in the forgotten realms and its where I began: my real plunge into D&D was Baldurs gate II the computer game (which was 2000, apparently). I've since played Icewindale (1&2), neverwinter nights (1&2), read the Drizzit books, and been keenly aware that each of them was in the forgotten realms.

Greyhawk I really know nothing about. The default setting for 3e was greyhawk (or so I was told) and I had no idea this was the case until pretty late in the game, and by then it didn't really have any meaning to me. If I had seen or played in a greyhawk campaign, I probably would have mentally labeled it "Generic" or possibly even "Forgotten realms". I assume in 1e and 2e it was a juggernaut with famous people and iconic modules, but I've never seen it that way. In my experience nothing labeled "Greyhawk" has stood out in my mind while Forgotten Realms has been pretty visible to me.

I don't know how many other people have had similar experiences, but I suspect that for someone starting in 2000 I'm not too far from normal *shrug*. So I suspect that Forgotten realms has an inertia that Greyhawk simply doesn't have at the moment, and would actually keep a decent number of campaigns even without support.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I can say that I only play the Realms because they make stuff for it.

But if I didn't play the Realms, I'm most often probably in the Homebrew slice of pie, moreso than most other settings (though I've dipped into Eberron, I'm perennially running Planescape, and I'm in a DL campaign at the moment).

 

[DEFCON 1]

WotC gave us three campaign settings during 4E-- and only one of which was pretty much decried as horrendous by a large swathe of their players.

And yet neither Eberron nor Dark Sun was able to make much headroom in the quest for overall popularity.

If WotC can do their level best to present the Forgotten Realms in such a way as to absolute DESTROY IT for a large number of Realms players, AND STILL it remains at 35% to everyone else's combined "Professor And Mary Ann" status... I think that says pretty definitively that more people just like the Forgotten Realms and that WotC's merely just following the numbers.

Don't blame WotC for give us what apparently a higher percentage of us want. Blame ourselves for not banding together and choosing another setting for all of us to get behind to SUPPLANT it.

 

[Shasarak]

My current DnD game is based in Greyhawk.

Of course if our party does not stop the BBEG from summoning a World Eater then there may not be another Greyhawk campaign.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Hmm…I think the best answer might come from expanded metrics going backwards in editions. It’d be interesting to see what things were liked going from 1e (fewer settings) to 2e and 3e (lots of settings).

It’d also be interesting to see which settings without current edition support are still being played in 5e.

From my perspective, the Realms and sundry Homebrews are certainly where I’ve clocked the most hours gaming. But I’ve also done Ravenloft, Spelljammer, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, and Dark Sun.

 

[JackOfAllTirades]

It's obvious that a majority of GM's/players aren't satisfied with any of the published settings. Why are we still talking about FR?

 

[Celtavian]

Most likely true. I played in The Realms because they produced high quality material for The Realms. I played in Greyhawk way back in the day when it was the only world. I played in Golarion when I was playing Pathfinder. A well done setting makes it easier on a DM. I was mostly unconcerned with canon or what was occurring in the novels.

I don't personally enjoy homebrew. Most homebrew worlds are as unoriginal as The Realms with far less material that is not at all well balanced. I like a world with that provides a core setting for games and especially mechanics.

 

[sleypy]

I've played in the Realms mostly because I get less negativity from people over it. Any time I've tried to start an Eberron game, I attracted more people interested in bashing it and suggesting that it is for "Monte Hall" GMs. I've had games interrupted because of kobolds being lizards.

Darksun is a setting that I would rather pull from than actually play. D&D has enough resource management; I can't see the fun in adding more.

To tell the truth a lot more FR stuff comes up in a Google search. That is probably the number one reason I pull from it more than other settings.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Did WotC ever make available a similar breakdown for 4th Edition?

I ask because my assumptions and conclusions while reading the 5E data were these:

1. At the end of 3E, More gamers used campaign worlds than homebrew worlds.

2. The Realms utilized the most by campaign world users.

3. 4E shattered this percentage, causing homebrews to become the majority.

4. 5E's initial focus resulted in an increase in the use of published campaign worlds.

5. The 35% does not represent old fans of the Realms returning. Rather, it's comprised of mostly new fans who either don't know or don't care what happened to the Realms previously.

6. A similar focus on other published campaign worlds will decrease the number of homebrew campaigns in favor of published world campaigns.

I'd like more data to test these assumptions.