What's so special about Forgotten Realms?

[kitsune9]

Since the question has been asked and answered about Greyhawk I decided I wanted to find out about D&D's other really big setting.

What makes Forgotten Realms unique?

And most especially for my benefit:
What type of person would most enjoy Forgotten Realms?

I would consider myself a fan of FR. I had many of the sourcebooks since it came out in 1st edition. Here's the list of reasons as to why I like it and please don't take this a criticism of the other campaign settings, because I'm a fan of the other stuff too.

1. FR is about power. The whole theme of every region, powergroup, and person is that it's about power and that a lot of people got it. Is it realistic? Who cares. Gimme some of that 9th level spell loving and toss in an artifact or two.

2. FR has detail for just about everything and every region. Just about the entire world has a thourough covering and there is little not discussed. In 3.x the amount of supplements and sourcebooks is about a couple thousand pages. If you want to know of a region and don't want to develop it yourself as a DM, buy the supplement that covers that area and you're good to go.

3. FR is high magic--uber magic. I don't particularly care for low-level magic campaigns. I don't want to play to 10th level and get my first +1 sword. By the time, I'm 20th level, I want to have magic items out the ying-yang and ready to throw down with some godlings. FR is a setting that encourages the high magic aspect where it should be possible to become truly powerful.

I know that this doesn't really turn a lot of people's crank for a campaign setting for these reasons, but FR has always been fun for me. Other campaign settings are cool too. I've played Living Greyhawk for years in the RPGA and the Dragonlance novels are some of my favorites. Overall, FR is one of my favs though.

 

[Desdichado]

Easy there, tiger. Third word in is "think." To use it in a sentence, "I don't think blah blah blah."

Yes, I know. You might have noticed that I used that same word too.

My bad. From my perspective they do seem really big, as they feel, to me, like they get mentioned more often than Eberron and Dragonlance.

No, no call out intended! Actually, I'd welcome threads on them too, but I'm too lazy to start them myself.

 

[Nymrohd]

FR, especially from the Time of Troubles and on (in our timeframe not that of the campaign setting) was indeed depicted as an increasingly high magic setting. One could probably argue that there is no place in FR that has not felt epic magic at some point in history (There have been dozens of massive empires that were all magocratic or theocratic in nature). In this manner I think FR perfectly suited the 3.5 rules; non-spellcasters simply did not belong in high level play unless they were bedecked in magic items.

And honestly I think what pissed off most FR fans was not so much the destruction, the yet another death of Mystra or the weird dragonmen in Unther. It was the fact that 3E was preparing the setting for a massive built up on almost every region, and we never got to see the results. People had been waiting for the new kings of Cormyr and Impiltur, the war in Amn, the resurfacing of elven kingdoms, the redemption of the drow, the war of the old empires, the ramifications of an orc kingdom in the north, heck even the Vilhon Reach-Lake of Steam canal to all start making sense. All these and more hooks had been created during 3E and never really had a chance to be resolved in game because a year or two after they were done, the world blew up.

 

[Hereticus]

Problem was, the detail was getting choking for new players and especially DMs. 3e FRCS was and is one of the best D&D books ever, but it's absolutely crammed full of stuff about the world. I think that some slate-clearing was necessary anyway, and with FR's history of Grand Sweeping World-Changing Events, they went reasonably well with it.

Yes, a slate cleaning was needed.

It got to the point where it was like New Jersey, every last square mile was developed in some way.

 

[Nymrohd]

I don't think that the detail was what was choking DMs and players. The metaplot was.

 

[Shemeska]

What was special about the Realms was the level of detail, the long developed history, a distinctly high fantasy feel with powerful spellcasters and even more powerful lost of hidden magic lurking in the past (Netheril, Imaskar, etc) and a combination of very good writers for the setting over the years (Schend and Boyd being two of my favorites, among others).

Of course much of that's a moot point now given that much of that long-developed lore has been thrown aside, invalidated by retcons or massive campaign changes, or rendered irrelevant by the huge time jump. The setting was changed so much to conform to the 4e default setting assumptions that it truly no longer feels nor resembles the Forgotten Realms except in name only. I miss it.

Please see my post below. Thanks. ~ PCat

 

[C_M2008]

Nothing. Nothing is special about FR. A High-Magic fantasy, overly detailed world filled with far too many super epic earth shaking NPCs = blech.

I tried to DM an FR adventure for a group once (I didn't feel strongly one way or another at the time) and I was continuously interrupted by streams of : "He wouldn't do that, he's not like that", "The sewer entrance is 50 feet that way, and we'll find a secret door 100 ft up the passage way ", "They don't have that ability, instead they do X". Most Frustrating DMing session of my life. But I decided to do my research after the session before I gave up entirely and borrowed a campaign guide. Got half-way through it before I finally gave up.

 

[jdrakeh]

I thought FR in its original, grey box, is one of the better "generic" fantasy settings out there. Much like with Greyhawk, it has an excellent map with varied terrain. The booklets give the perfect amount of information - enough to spur the imagination, but not so much that it overwhelms the DM. It also left vast areas open for DM development.

Adding a few of the regional supplements is great, too. They are, for the most part, wonderful books, light on mechanics but heavy on fluff.

In its original incarnation, FR didn't feel claustrophobic or crowded, IMHO. There are a few famous adventuring companies, but overall, it felt like a great kind of gaming world with a ton of elbow-room.

With that said, I tend to think that pretty much everything released for FR apart from these supplements was a detriment to the setting, and it got to the point where I didn't even want to look at it anymore. It crossed the line between "Sufficient information" and "Too much information" and the lore just became a burden, rather than a pleasure. YMMV.

-O

What he said. I really like the original FR 'grey box' and FR supplements 1-6 (FR6 is one of my most favorite RPG supplements ever). The world therein was defined in broad strokes and left plenty of room for me to work as a DM, making the world my own. It was a great higher magic alternative to Greyhawk.

Past that, stuff got a lot more detailed — but in doing so, it also became much more prescriptive (as opposed to descriptive). I still enjoy the Realms today, but don't use anything past that first grey box, the six aformentioned setting supplements, and Waterdeep (FRE3).

Anything more, and the setting feels like it isn't mine anymore, but somebody else's. Playing in somebody else's imagination has never appealed much to me.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

Nothing. Nothing is special about FR. A High-Magic fantasy, overly detailed world filled with far too many super epic earth shaking NPCs = blech.

Considering some of the "fresh" settings that I've seen this actually sounds like fun.

 

[Twowolves]

What's so special about Forgotten Realms?

Nothing, now.