NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercule" data-source="post: 7991942" data-attributes="member: 5100">Eh, I think the difference is more along the lines of "how do you define 'need'?"I, personally, don't really care about the greater canon of the Realms (or most other settings). Yes, if it's presented, I'll use it. But, I really prefer to have things that are more seeds than fully bloomed, setting-wise. So, for me, "need" means give me enough to set a base structure to hang things on. "Need" also includes enough gray that I can actually run the game and fill in gaps without worrying about tripping over some other random bit of canon. I want the adventure defined and the world gray.I mentioned, earlier, my extreme disdain for the Realms. A very small amount of that is actually not caring for some parts of what was in the 1E gray box. But, I played, quite happily, in a Realms game with that structure. Really, what fries me about the Realms is that there is so much freaking information that I genuinely don't see how anyone can actually work with the thing and have a life. It seems that you could put together a four year undergraduate program on the Realms and still leave room for a masters. That's great, if your actual hobby is studying the setting (like, say, some do with Tolkien). My hobby is playing the game. In that regard, Forgotten Realms fails to give me what I need to play -- flexibility and manageability.So, in that regard, I wouldn't turn down having Ubtoa's domains, but I'm totally happy with just having the name. Heck, if I stumble over the name too many times, I'm probably going to demote him to demigod and replace him in stature with someone else. I'm not really concerned with matching up with some other book and would prefer that I retain that freedom.Which is why I was very negative about the Realms becoming the 5E default setting. The only way to really make it appropriate as the anchor for all these adventures is to strip away all the depth it's built up. If you want the depth, go get the prior books. What you get from 5E is just enough to let someone run an adventure without having to also build a setting. That makes it usable for people like me who are quite comfortable telling players at the table, "That's nice, but I don't really care what the book says." Settings are a tool for GMs, not players.</blockquote>

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