D&D 5E The case for (and against) a new Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting book

[The Green Hermit]

As a school teacher, I have plenty of contact with them.

I get the impression quite a few people on this forum don't associate with anyone under 40.

I am also a teacher and the group I run is primarily teenagers. Forgotten Realms is not dead.

 

[The Green Hermit]

It is actually useful for that, yes!

I went ahead and bought it. Enough of Part 2 takes place in Waterdeep that any information on the city itself will be very helpful.

 

[Coroc]

This is only true to an extent. The Realms, as much as I love them, are about as generic a fantasy setting as I can imagine. In a lot of ways that's by design, and it's also useful in that it's very easy to add your own flavor (kind of like cooking with tofu). However, the Realms doesn't have a lot of 'sexy' to sell to new players. The adventure paths help there because of the content type, but I think a setting book is, in some ways. swimming against the stream.

FR wasn't so generic back then when it first was published. Ok Greyhawk had some underdark, but it pales compared to FR.

Dead magic and wild magic zones and mythals first appeared in FR

 

[Fenris-77]

FR wasn't so generic back then when it first was published. Ok Greyhawk had some underdark, but it pales compared to FR.

Dead magic and wild magic zones and mythals first appeared in FR

It wasn't a critique of the Realms at all, I love the Realms dearly. What the Realms lacks is a core idea or two that you can point to and say that's what the Realms is all about. Eberron has the magitech thing and a neat noir feel, Wildemount has CR, Dark Sun has, well, everything, you see what I mean. The lack of a core saleable idea for FR makes a straight setting book difficult. The big adventure books neatly sidestep this because the massive adventure path is the core saleable feature. The Realms is, in some ways, just the glue that holds the APs togther. That said, viewed from a different standpoint, the Realms could also be said to be getting an enormously in-depth treatment, one area at a time.

Greyhawk suffers from some of the same problems IMO.

 

[the Jester]

FR wasn't so generic back then when it first was published. Ok Greyhawk had some underdark, but it pales compared to FR.

Dead magic and wild magic zones and mythals first appeared in FR

It was (and is) a kitchen sink setting, with literally everything thrown into a blender together and then poured out. You want some Egypt? I got your Egypt. You want some techno-gnomes? We got that. You want traditional Western European fantasy? No problem. Some Asian style? Hey, we'll just excise Kara-Tur from Greyhawk and stick it in the Realms. How about some Mongol stuff? Sure, we'll add that! Oh, you want a New World discovery scenario?....

It's a matter of opinion, but to me, cramming every possible identity together leaves the Realms with very little identity of its own. The Mythals and dead magic and all that being some of the exceptions.

Greyhawk, on the other hand, has a distinct Dark Ages feel. Good is battered and under siege. Evil is on the rise. The big empire (the Great Kingdom) has fallen under the influence of demons. I have always felt that Greyhawk has a far more distinct identity, and one that is far more likely to inspire adventures for me. I get that a lot of people disagree, and that's okay, but that's my take.

 

[Coroc]

It wasn't a critique of the Realms at all, I love the Realms dearly. What the Realms lacks is a core idea or two that you can point to and say that's what the Realms is all about. Eberron has the magitech thing and a neat noir feel, Wildemount has CR, Dark Sun has, well, everything, you see what I mean. The lack of a core saleable idea for FR makes a straight setting book difficult. The big adventure books neatly sidestep this because the massive adventure path is the core saleable feature. The Realms is, in some ways, just the glue that holds the APs togther. That said, viewed from a different standpoint, the Realms could also be said to be getting an enormously in-depth treatment, one area at a time.

Greyhawk suffers from some of the same problems IMO.

i agree partially but from another pov.
the core ideas for FR i did point out in my previous post. The core theme in greyhawk is harder to recognize but it is there : Iuz Rary Vecna and other villains vs the neutral/good folks.
whith 5e though, they do not follow this core idea for FR anymore except in OOTA.
instead they put in some adventure modules originating in greyhawk into FR. So there is no baseline anymore. The classic FR villains e.g. Zhent Thay Drow Halruaa do not get their place anymore but are replaced by Greyhawk villains and others.

 

[Coroc]

It was (and is) a kitchen sink setting, with literally everything thrown into a blender together and then poured out. You want some Egypt? I got your Egypt. You want some techno-gnomes? We got that. You want traditional Western European fantasy? No problem. Some Asian style? Hey, we'll just excise Kara-Tur from Greyhawk and stick it in the Realms. How about some Mongol stuff? Sure, we'll add that! Oh, you want a New World discovery scenario?....

It's a matter of opinion, but to me, cramming every possible identity together leaves the Realms with very little identity of its own. The Mythals and dead magic and all that being some of the exceptions.

Greyhawk, on the other hand, has a distinct Dark Ages feel. Good is battered and under siege. Evil is on the rise. The big empire (the Great Kingdom) has fallen under the influence of demons. I have always felt that Greyhawk has a far more distinct identity, and one that is far more likely to inspire adventures for me. I get that a lot of people disagree, and that's okay, but that's my take.

yes agree, but it was not always that way for FR

 

[pming]

Hiya!

That really does not mean anything.

Hence being stuck in their ways.

You say "stuck in their ways" and I hear "old enough to know what they like, don't like, and are wise enough to know how to tell the difference".


^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It wasn't a critique of the Realms at all, I love the Realms dearly. What the Realms lacks is a core idea or two that you can point to and say that's what the Realms is all about. Eberron has the magitech thing and a neat noir feel, Wildemount has CR, Dark Sun has, well, everything, you see what I mean.

And Greyhawk has nostalgia.

Give it 20 years, and the current crop of players will be crying out for more Forgotten Realms, the setting they grew up with. But currently, familiarity breads contempt.

 

[Aldarc]

It wasn't a critique of the Realms at all, I love the Realms dearly. What the Realms lacks is a core idea or two that you can point to and say that's what the Realms is all about. Eberron has the magitech thing and a neat noir feel, Wildemount has CR, Dark Sun has, well, everything, you see what I mean. The lack of a core saleable idea for FR makes a straight setting book difficult. The big adventure books neatly sidestep this because the massive adventure path is the core saleable feature. The Realms is, in some ways, just the glue that holds the APs togther. That said, viewed from a different standpoint, the Realms could also be said to be getting an enormously in-depth treatment, one area at a time.

Greyhawk suffers from some of the same problems IMO.

What FR has is how a lot play at contemporary D&D tables gravitates: it has heroic high fantasy. (But then again, so does Dragonlance, which arguably has it more so.) FR has a series of metaplots that are closely related to book tie-ins. (But then again, so does Dragonlance.)