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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 7670545" data-attributes="member: 1210">Sure! Speaking only for myself, and fully acknowledging that these aren't insurmountable issues, my hate stems from a number of things.EDIT: Oh, duh, added a big one. Well, two.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Appropriation. The FR have appropriated a lot of stuff that was not FR material to begin with. Why on earth were perytons and leucrotta relegated to the Monsters of Faerun supplement in 3e? Or how about Kara-Tur? In 1e's OA hardback, it's explicitly set in the World of Greyhawk. The recent elemental-themed adventure (PotA) was perfectly themed for GH, but now it seems as though FR is appropriating the Elemental Evil theme, too.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Super-uber-Mary-Sue npcs. This is probably the most common FR complaint- the setting is about npcs, not the pcs. Of course Elminster never needs to show up in your game, but what the hell is he doing when the demon princes crawl out into Waterdeep? If not him, what about any of the dozens of other epic npcs that are sprinkled throughout the landscape? This may be less true now post-3e, I don't know, but given that Salvatore just raised, like, all his characters from the dead in a recent novel, I think we know how long death sticks in the FR... at least, for npcs.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The cheapening of formerly awesome elements in D&D. I'm specifically thinking of the contrast between the Drow as originally presented and the FR treatment of them. In all fairness, 1e UA allowed Drow as a pc race, but they were incredibly overpowered. Turning them into a 'legit' pc race, probably due to the popularity of Driz'zt, made them extremely flaccid lettuce instead of stiff, spiny artichokes.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Dominance of the setting market. I've stated my opinion upthread a couple of times that FR is the most popular 'standard' setting largely because it gets thirty times as much support as any other standard setting (by which I exclude things like Dark Sun, Eberron and other worlds with a very different tone). This results directly in other settings not getting support, which leads to them falling in popularity because what's this Greyhawk you speak of?, and this leads to more support for the popular setting- FR- all over again. It's a vicious feedback loop. If I want to purchase an adventure from WotC that I can fit into my game easily (by which I mean a not-weird-setting adventure), then it's pretty much FR or nothing right now. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Ridiculous amount of canon and backstory. Another issue is the amount of backstory and canon built up in the FR. This is the result of too many sourcebooks about everything. There was even the equivalent of a Sears catalog at one point! The weight of all that canon is one of the main reasons why the Realms is periodically rebooted... which reminds me a lot of Crisis on Infinite Earths; it was supposed to help but it just made the mess messier. Which leads me directly to...</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Realms-shaking events. Holy cow are these awful. I mean, yes, Time of Troubles was the worst, and it epitomized much of what I hate about the FR- driven by npcs, etc- but the subsequent various RSEs have been only a little better. Shake up the world? Sure, why not? Oh, it was unpopular? Let's backpedal! RSEs don't seem to shake much in the real long term; the status quo always seems to return. But meanwhile, these terrible stories dominate the setting, and if you don't acknowledge them in your game, it really affects the usability of a lot of later-published material. The problem with RSEs is that they attempt to dictate the nature of the setting to the DM rather than enabling or following the DM's path.</li> </ul>There are probably more, but those are what immediately came to mind.</blockquote>

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