What do you think about the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting Book

[The Little Raven]

So vibrant, detailed, logical, and realistic feeling settings are lazy and uninspired, but Ye Olde England rip off #453278 isn't?

I've got a great idea. Try actually reading my post, especially the part where I said "real-world stuff dropped in." Or did you think that England wasn't a part of the real world, or that I was making some kind of exception for it without actually making one?

And sure, real-world ripoffs are detailed, logical (as logical as humans can get) and realistic because they're usually copied from reference books with a few changes.

 

[The Little Raven]

just taking modern day American culture and medievalizing it

What part of "I don't like real-world stuff dropped in with the serial numbers filed off" is so difficult to grasp? Last I checked, America was a part of the real world.

 

[rounser]

I don't know if "racist" is the right term, but it's definately rearing it's head.

Xenophobia might be the word you're looking for, but I don't think even that's correct. It's just a case of what people are inspired by and consider cool. It's not a surprise that westerners quite like western pseudomedieval setting as a default.

I think it's okay if people find they want to run a pseudomedieval pseudoeuropean setting, rather than a fantasy africa, egypt, arabia or orient, for instance. All of the latter rock if given the right D&D treatment. But it would have been an easy decision to make from a purely logical and rational business-thinking basis - it's not FR's "core business", and not many people used it, so it's gone. For instance, I gather that Mulhorand only exists because Greenwood wanted somewhere for his cultists of Set to come from.

The game got a lot of fat trimmed in the rules, so we see a lot of fat trimmed in the settings. If there are intangibles that get lost in the process (like what the heck a warlord actually is, and where are my cultists of Set going to come from now), then that's not too surprising. We've already seen a lot of that in the core books.

 

[Darrin Drader]

-I will get to use alot from the supplement Serpent Kingdoms in the 4E FRCG. (Which is one of my favorite 3E Realms book PERIOD!) Najara is actually on the big map, and has a two page spread in the book. The Sarrukh kingdom is back down in the south. Which has a couple of pages.

I was almost going to give this a miss, then you had to go and bring up the sarrukh.

 

[Fenes]

In previous editions of the Realms, how many people actually featured in their games the more "exotic" locals that got the axe? They might be fun to read about but how many really used them?

I have been running campaigns in those "exotic" locations for years, far longer than in the North. Semphar, Calimshan, Mulhorand, Unther, Chessenta, Turmic, Vilhon Reaches, Amn - all those are much more interesting to me than ye olde North/Dalesland.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

In previous editions of the Realms, how many people actually featured in their games the more "exotic" locals that got the axe? They might be fun to read about but how many really used them?

I'm another one.

Even in the games that didn't directly involve them, they often had mentions and points brought up; after all, the purpose of a large trading city is the mishmash of different cultures. When you reduce a world to "Boring ye olde england city and lots of places around it that nobody cares about," you do just that - you reduce the world.

 

[Achan hiArusa]

What part of "I don't like real-world stuff dropped in with the serial numbers filed off" is so difficult to grasp? Last I checked, America was a part of the real world.

So you are another M.A.R. Barker with your own richly detailed world with about 5 or more artificial languages including one in which it takes 30 different ways to say "you" with races that no one has ever seen before like the Hlaka or the Ahoygga with a detailed history from the Empire of Llyan through Nayari of the Silken Thighs to the modern Throne Emperor? Then your campaign must feature cultural details like the 20 accepted Mesque plates and the various insult handsigns, the difference between various cities like Bey Su or Jakalla, and with details on the regional foods of your countries including the different ways they serve Chutmel. If that's the case, then bravo for you.

 

[Wormwood]

In previous editions of the Realms, how many people actually featured in their games the more "exotic" locals that got the axe?

Not me, that's for sure.

My best Realms games were back during the 1e Grey Box (the greatest rpg product ever), which was dripping with flavor yet vague enough for us to fill in the gaps with our imaginations.

But we definitely ignored the direct cultural analogs when possible, especially the worst of the 2e bunch (the Horde and Maztica).

 

[Keefe the Thief]

Racism because the "what i thought ancient egypt/south america/etc. looked like" cultures are gone? And those parts were the most logical parts of the setting? Logical? And you´re all aware that the Shou play an important role now in the eastern realms?Is this some kind of bizarro alternate universe we´re talking about?
Those cultures were removed because they took the "shared setting" concept that the FR is built upon too far, because there was no longer a common theme to the campaign world. They were included simply because TSR knew that creating them as stand-alone books would diminish sales. And i´m so happy they´re gone. Nothing more embarassing as explaining the campaign world to new players, talking about all the interesting locations and weird cultures, and then having to say: "and here´s, um, egypt. More or less."

 

[Najo]

I am going to chime in with my 2 cents:

I think it is possible to use real world cultures in fantasy settings to help players connect and get the concepts of the regions quickly. When you drop them in to close to the historical earth version, it does ruin the suspension of belief and feels cheesy to me.

I think the key to using real world cultures in fantasy is to change them enough that they feel similiar and based on the original culture but not a copy of it.

Forgotten Realms use of the our mythological gods and the exact look and feel of those countries seemed hokey to me. I am glad many of those copied elements are gone, but I would like to keep things that are inspired by them still.