D&D 5E (2014) Settings played in D&D: cause or effect?

[JohnLynch]

That is exactly how Wizards works when trying to justify what they want to do instead of what the customers actually want.

Citation needed on fans wanting a single setting more than wanting FR.

 

[delericho]

Sounds like you're doing a homebrew that borrows liberally from FR. Without being bound to it.

I doubt there's anyone, Ed Greenwood aside, who runs FR exactly as-is. So where is the boundary between "FR with some changes" and "homebrew that borrows liberally from FR"?

 

[JohnLynch]

No, as a player I can not freely ignore or change anything I don't understand.

Then this makes even less sense to me.

If I am collecting gossip and the DM gives me rumors about Sammaster returning and I don't connect it to the Cult of the Dragon, I can't tell him his plot isn't happening.

Based on a single check and the name Sammaster, my character would have also failed to connect the name to the Cult of the Dragon. Sounds like either a bad adventure or a DM who has failed to make it clear why something is important. Happens all the time. DMs learn from the experience and the game moves on. It has nothing to do with the setting.

I've had players come to me and say "I don't know much about the setting we're playing in. Will I still be able to play? Should I read a whole bunch of books?" My answer has always been the same "Prior knowledge isn't necessary. Here's a players guide I've written up (never more than 20 pages) to give you the information you need to make a character appropriate for the campaign. If you REALLY want to, you can read book X, but it's really not necessary." I've never had a player come to me after a few game sessions and say "I can't enjoy this campaign because I don't know enough about it." I've GM'd in Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Dark Sun and Golarion. Each setting has a hefty library of books that can be intimidating to a new player. I've never had a problem and I've GM'd for brand new players to tabletop roleplaying games.

So if you're struggling to keep up in a given game, I'd disagree that the problem is inherent in the Forgotten Realms. Any setting that is actively supported by more than a token number of products will have the same issue given enough years. A DM can easily manage this without issue.

WHY run a specific setting if not for the shared background with the players? "Hey, I'm going to run star wars". "Cool, and I play a Jedi?" "Well, nah no jedi, sith, smugglers, droids or the force." At that point, why put it in the Star Wars Universe? Same here. If you aren't going to cater to the FR parts, why play FR. If you're going to use FR as a shorthand so you can say "Cormyr" and your players immediately know what you are talking about, they'll have expectations such as the Purple Dragon Knights being around.

You said your players knew highly detailed information about a cabal of semi-secretive wizards and then looked for very specific information about things their characters had never seen in game. You then equated me saying Jedi, Sith and Smugglers don't exist in Star Wars? The two are not equatable.

But let's use a different example. Let's say it was elves, dwarves, Cormyr and the Weave. When I run a campaign I read up on a setting. Whether it's Eberron, Golarion or the Forgotten Realms is irrelevant. I'll read a supplement on the region, and then run the game. Things not covered in that supplement aren't relevant to me. What I've read is what informs on my campaign. I then tell the players what the premise of the campaign is and ask them to create characters that have a reason to be there and participate in the setting. In this case, if my campaign was in Aglarond, the details of Undermountain are both irrelevant to me and my group. Cormyr would be of some importance (as a major player in the Inner Sea region), but the detailed inner workings of Cormyr certainly won't be while dwarves will be of little to no importance but certain elven subraces will be extremely important. The Weave will be a thing that exists but won't take center stage of the campaign unless I cause it to. But I am taking full advantage of the information on Aglarond itself.

4e is one edition ago. Try three settings worth of it being the earliest out as I mentioned, and that's not even all of it. It was out for AD&D, AD&D 2ed, 3.x, 4e and 5e. So it's been around for 5 editions, and in at least three it's the first out so that people wanting to play the new system and are looking for more, it's the first setting expansion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forgotten_Realms

Oh. I see. So you're saying because of 4 edition's worth of support FR is more popular than any other campaign setting. I'll concede that point but it's also irrelevant. When gauging which setting to support in 5e, WotC will look at what has been most popular in the past and then make that the primal focus. So yes, it is a self-reinforcing situation. But after 20+ years it's also irrelevant that it's a self-reinforcing situation because that's where the money is.

 

[Maxperson]

I think WotC has set themselves up with a self-fulfilling prophecy. Most of the campaigns that I see people here and on the late D&D forums clamor for haven't been supported since 2e. Planescape, Dragonlance, Darksun, Birthright, and so on. Oh, there were a few Dragon articles for them, but that really doesn't count as support. Even Greyhawk had no 3e support and it was the default world! The only support it had was that the gods listed in the PHB were Greyhawk gods. It's no wonder that the person early on in the thread who started with 3e didn't know anything about it. The Realms on the other hand has had a great deal of support in every edition.

Name recognition and support have a lot to do with the results of polls, especially when a good chunk of players (any who started at 3e or later) have never played in those other campaigns. Who is going to vote for Darksun when they don't know much about it and/or have never experienced play in that campaign?

 

[Maxperson]

I've had players come to me and say "I don't know much about the setting we're playing in. Will I still be able to play? Should I read a whole bunch of books?" My answer has always been the same "Prior knowledge isn't necessary. Here's a players guide I've written up (never more than 20 pages) to give you the information you need to make a character appropriate for the campaign. If you REALLY want to, you can read book X, but it's really not necessary." I've never had a player come to me after a few game sessions and say "I can't enjoy this campaign because I don't know enough about it." I've GM'd in Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Dark Sun and Golarion. Each setting has a hefty library of books that can be intimidating to a new player. I've never had a problem and I've GM'd for brand new players to tabletop roleplaying games.

Me, too. I've had many players come and tell me that they don't know about X campaign setting and worry that it will be a problem. My response to them is that it's actually much better to know nothing about it. The settings are not like the real world where information about the entire planet is at the fingertips of the PCs. The PCs won't know about 90-95% of the world, the exceptions being the local area that the grew up in and some very few major things that are common knowledge. You the player can learn about the setting at the same time as the PCs learn about it.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I definitely think this is a deeply intertwined thing. If Al-Qadim had more support, would it get played more? Almost surely! But at the same time, I do think there's some truth to their stated position as well.

More or less, FR appeals by being sufficiently inspecific, other than in the ways that are most "inherently D&D"--lots of adventures, lots of treasures, lots of princes in peril and damsels in distress. Dark Sun is an intentional inversion--and, as such, tends to appeal mostly to people who are "sick" of the typical, which is generally going to be a smaller portion of the audience.

I do, however, think that they could do with branching out into other worlds that are similar to the Forgotten Realms without being identical. Mystara, Al-Qadim, Greyhawk, and more that I'm not overtly familiar with could EASILY work. If I had to hazard a guess: they've been sticking to their, and their customers', "comfort zone." Now that we've got three adventures (potentially four, if the next is also) set in the Forgotten Realms, they've made sure they've got enough of a following that they can rely on it even if the subsequent adventures aren't as "universally" acclaimed--and they can capitalize on the "ugh, FR is(/has gotten) so BORING, I want something NEW and DIFFERENT."

 

[delericho]

I think WotC has set themselves up with a self-fulfilling prophecy. Most of the campaigns that I see people here and on the late D&D forums clamor for haven't been supported since 2e. Planescape, Dragonlance, Darksun, Birthright, and so on.

All true, as far as it goes. But why, from a business point of view, should WotC provide support for these settings? As noted, they supported Eberron in 3e and 4e, and it did okay (as in, not great). They supported Dark Sun in 4e, and again it did okay.

There's no great evidence that those settings would sell a huge number of books, where there is evidence of those sales for FR.

So, other than charity towards the 2% of fans who play Planescape, why would they go to the expense of putting a book together?

Even Greyhawk had no 3e support and it was the default world! The only support it had was that the gods listed in the PHB were Greyhawk gods.

Plus the "D&D Gazeteer", the "Living Greyhawk Gazeteer", "Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk", and lots of support in Dragon (largely because of Erik Mona's championing of the setting).

 

[Parmandur]

This makes me wonder why they don't produce more setting-neutral material for the majority of players who play in a home-brew setting. It's probably a big turn-off to these players that only products with large story-arcs that would be disruptive to a home-brew world are available, not to mention having to change names and other elements that would tie the adventure to a particular canned setting. I'm sure a lot of these players would like to occasionally plop down an isolated adventure into their home-brew to save on prep-time. I had no idea there were so many more home-brew games than games that use a published setting.

He also says that about half the home brewers will borrow bits from their books, so take the SCAG and use Mirabar in a home brew, or Neverwinter, etc.

As such, the majority of fans get utility from Realms setting product: ~25% +35%.

 

[Blue]

I doubt there's anyone, Ed Greenwood aside, who runs FR exactly as-is. So where is the boundary between "FR with some changes" and "homebrew that borrows liberally from FR"?

These were the quotes in the message you replied to. See if you can identify where it goes from running FR to running a homebrew borrowing from FR.

I know I'm running "Forgotten Realms" because I'm 41 with an adult job and don't have the time or inclination to homebrew a good campaign anymore. I use quotes because besides the map, pretty much anything lore-wise is a grab bag. I mean they already came across Threshold and met a noble from the Grand Duchy of Karameikos, so...

I run the FR now precisely since my players (my kids) don't know anything about it. To me FR is a map with place names and as much detail as I choose to use, and NPCs with backgrounds that I can either use or ignore.

 

[Blue]

Oh. I see. So you're saying because of 4 edition's worth of support FR is more popular than any other campaign setting. I'll concede that point but it's also irrelevant. When gauging which setting to support in 5e, WotC will look at what has been most popular in the past and then make that the primal focus. So yes, it is a self-reinforcing situation. But after 20+ years it's also irrelevant that it's a self-reinforcing situation because that's where the money is.

So in a thread that is specifically about if FR is popular because it's good or because it has a lot of support, it's IRRELEVANT to show it has a lot of support over time?

Ooookay.