Why *Dont* you like Forgotten Realms?

[Swedish Chef]

I'd probably like _your_ forgotten realms too. But, you've house ruled the setting to the point that its difficult to call it the Forgotten Realms.

Thank you for the compliment. As to the second sentence, you're partially correct. I've house ruled away the uber NPCs. Doesn't mean the various other elements are gone. I still use the Zhentarim, Red Wizards, Harpers, etc. They're just toned down. I don't consider removing uber NPCs to be a radical change to the setting, but that's my opinion. YMMV, etc.

And in my experience, this is what the best FR DM's do - they just dump what they don't like and use what they can. There are things about the material available for FR that are very useful, even if the the FR as a setting as a whole isn't. For example, just having all those city maps and names at hand can save you an enormous amount of time as a DM.

And this is why I don't understand all the Forgotten Realms hatred out there. Disinterest, I can understand. The setting just doesn't do it for some people, and that's fine. But to actively avoid a setting or to hate it just because of specific characters exist in a published book - that I don't understand. The entire game is based on the premise of "here are the guidelines for playing the game. Modify them as you see fit to make the game more enjoyable. Here are supplements and adventures for you to use to further enhance your fun. Change what you like!" Yet people seem to think that they are required to run the Realms as published. That Elminister must be there to save the day if the PCs fail or that Waterdeep has to be the shining bright star of a city in the North.

Having said that, I do understand the backlash against players who insist on knowing all the minutiae of a setting and insist that the rest of the group know and follow that level of detail. If I had a player that owned every book and knew the full "canon" time line by heart and insisted that this town doesn't belong in this spot or that the Harpers would help the PCs because of X reason or whatever, that player would be reminded that our group does not slavishly follow canon, and if they can't enjoy our game that way, they are welcome to find another game.

As an aside, I've met and gamed with Ed Greenwood. He's a helluva a nice guy. He definitely identifies with Elminister to a degree. Whether this was true in the early days of his gaming, I don't know and couldn't say. However, I will say that the brief game that I did play with him as DM, not once did any of the uber NPCs show up, even to get us moving on our way with the plot. I think Elminister is just a way for him to express his creativity in written format.

Except for the beard. That's definitely Elminister.

 

[Hella_Tellah]

Exactly. The level of detail is, for me, a lifesaver. I can consult huge amounts of material for inspiration as to what sort of game I want to run. If I need an NPC, there's thousands. If I need a city, there's hundreds. If I need a plot hook, there's dozens. But somehow this doesn't stop me creating my own NPC's, or cities or whatever. I simply do not understand it when people argue that the level of detail stops them creating. Are DM's unable to ignore the detail they don't need and use the detail they want to?

And sure, there are setting lawyers out there who have read every single product. But again, you're the DM. Remind them of rule zero, and if needed, grab a heavy gaming book and smack em round the head, telling them that it's your world, and that as the DM you have the right to change things. Further, aren't there setting lawyers for anything? Why does that only seem to be a bad mark against the Forgotten Realms?

The problem for me is that the most enthusiastic, interested players will gobble up all the available information on the setting. That's great, in that they do a lot of the legwork in hooking themselves into the setting and bringing a lot of the setting's unique flavor to the table. The trouble is that they're also likely to be a little pickier than other players about getting things right, and they're more likely to seek out the famous places and people in the setting. If I don't have a good working knowledge of that stuff, the players will be disappointed.

If I as a DM want to entertain my most enthusiastic players, I need to know an awful lot about the setting, and there's so much written about the Realms that I feel I could probably never please an FR fan. There's just no way I can keep up, and I sort of feel the same about most of the long-running settings. I'd have to spend hundreds of hours reading up on Greyhawk to ever run the game for a Greyhawk fan, as well. And frankly, I really don't like reading fiction based on games, which is where a lot of the setting information is to be had.

 

[Greg K]

I like it provided we limit to the setting as presented in the original boxed set and FR series of supplements, Ed's magic item articles in Dragon, and then throw in the 2e FR deity books.

Time of Troubles, Spell Plague and the over development that followed over the years? No thanks.

 

[Alzrius]

Er, that's not how the GH pantheons work at all.

No kidding; I was using hyperbole to illustrate that that's not how the FR pantheons work at all, either.

If you were a magic-user, yes, you MIGHT worship Boccob. But you also might worship Wee Jas, Zagyg or another god entirely. If you're a FR mage, you pretty much worship Mystra.

Unless you worship Azuth, or Savras (divination), or Velsharoon (necromancy), or Shar (shadow magic). Or, for that matter, a deity of magic from a different regional pantheon (such as the Mulhorandi pantheon's Isis) or racial pantheon (such as the elven pantheon's Corellon).

Likewise, a fighter might choose to follow Hextor, Heironeous, Kord, Kelanen or any number of other gods, demipowers or quasi-deities.

Yeah, and an FR fighter could choose to worship Tempus, Torm, Helm, Garagos, Red Knight, etc.

FR's deities, imho, were much more one-dimensional (at least in their initial incarnation). Greyhawk's pantheons- because there are several- seem to have a lot more depth to me. But that may well be because of my personal affection for GH vs. my personal antipathy towards FR.

If by "initial incarnation" you mean the first boxed set, then maybe that's true...but that stopped being true quite a long time ago. Things like the "big three" F&A books pretty much put that issue to rest. Where's my big sourcebook dedicated to the Greyhawk gods?

I'm sorry, but it's just not true that the gods of the Forgotten Realms are underdeveloped compared to Greyhawk's.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I'm sorry, but it's just not true that the gods of the Forgotten Realms are underdeveloped compared to Greyhawk's.

One-dimensional is not the same as underdeveloped.

Greyhawk never had a single product detailing deities. Though the Living Greyhawk campaign compiled a unified download with every Greyhawk deity. Free.

 

[Alzrius]

One-dimensional is not the same as underdeveloped.

Presumably if something is well-developed, it's going to have multiple dimensions. Otherwise, why are you developing it?

Greyhawk never had a single product detailing deities. Though the Living Greyhawk campaign compiled a unified download with every Greyhawk deity. Free.

I know, I downloaded it several times (whenever it updated) - it's a great reference document, but in terms of actually fleshing out the deities it lists, I'd say at most it approaches FR 3E's Faiths & Pantheons, which itself didn't live up to its 2E predecessor sourcebooks on the gods, in usefulness.

The bottom line is that there's really no recourse for saying that the Greyhawk deities were more multidimensional/developed than the Forgotten Realms deities. The latter had more novels featuring them and more sourcebooks describing and detailing them. Beyond that, they seemed to get nearly identical treatment - various articles examining them and discussing them in the magazines, for instance.

If there's something intrinsic to the Greyhawk pantheons that lets them eclipse the FR deities in terms of quality, then I'd honestly like people to inform me as to what it is. So far, the only thing I can pick up on is that some people enjoy how the Flanaess had multiple ethnic pantheons represented throughout it; that you could find Suloise and Flan deities in the same regions, for example, since their people were intermingled, whereas the different pantheons in the Realms were geographically isolated for the most part - you had the Faerunian (super-)pantheon for Faerun, the Mulhorandi gods for Mulhorand, etc.

That's certainly cool for the Greyhawk gods, but it's hardly multi-dimensional of them.

 

[Greg K]

Greyhawk never had a single product detailing deities. Though the Living Greyhawk campaign compiled a unified download with every Greyhawk deity. Free.

By a single product, do you mean a single book or never done? If the latter, you have the following

1e: Dragon Magazine

By Gary Gygax
67 Greyhawk Deities
68 Greyhawk Deites (Celestian, Farlanghn,Ehlonna, Pholzus, Tritheron)
69 Greyhawk Deities (Istus, Obad-hai)
70 Greyhawk Deities (Boccob, zagyg, Oldimarra)
71 Greyhawk Deities (Erythnul, Incubalos, Nerull, Ralishaz, Wastri)
71 Greyhawks World (Heward, Keoghtom,Murlyand, Kelanen),


If you want to include them as part of Greyhawk, you also have the following:
Non human deitiy articles by Roger Moore: Dragon 58-63

Lendore Isle gods by Len Lakofa: the articles were printed somewhere between issues 70 and 80 (Lendore Isle was where modules L1: Bone Hill and L2 Assasin's Knot took place. The articles include the first appearance of Wee Jas and Kord)

3rd Edition:
PHB

Complete Divine (reintroduces Pholzus, Istus, Tritheron and others).

Sean Reynold's Core Belief Articles in Dragon (Boccob, Oldimara, Pelor, Vecna, Wee Jas, Heironeous, Hextor, St. Cuthbert)

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

By a single product, do you mean a single book or never done?

Heh, rereading I can see the confusion. I meant an all-encompassing singular resource that exhaustively covered all deities.

BTW, there was a Living Greyhawk Journal article introducing some hero deities.

 

[jeffh]

The crunch, and even some of the stuff that's a mix of interdependent crunch and fluff (prime example: the 2E deity books), is general-purpose enough that I can import it into other settings with few problems. So I do own a number of FR books, such as the aforementioned 2E deity trilogy and the 3E Magic of Faerun and Monsters of Faerun. I also rather like Waterdeep, and have considered doing games that just take place in and around it (possibly including Undermountain).

Most of what I know of the rest of the setting leaves me kind of meh, but the real obstacle is that there's so much of it and so many people who know it much better than I do. It seems like a lot of work for very little benefit relative to what I already get from settings I know better (Mystara, Cerilia, Dark Sun, my own Scarlos setting, to some extent Eberron, any of several settings I could import from various videogames if so minded).

 

[Celebrim]

The bottom line is that there's really no recourse for saying that the Greyhawk deities were more multidimensional/developed than the Forgotten Realms deities.

Sure there is.

The latter had more novels featuring them and more sourcebooks describing and detailing them.

You seem to think that providing details is the same thing as giving something depth or quality. You can provide alot of details but it doesn't add depth or sophistication of conception to the original ideas. They still remain one diminsional, shallow, and unimaginative. They are just a near random collection of deities from the original Deities and Demigods, who sometimes have been given different names. I don't even understand why you would defend them given there well known origin. Faiths and Avatars deserves some praise for recognizing that players and DM's were better served by more details about the church, worship and clerics of a deity than they were stat-blocks (a fault commonly noted in the earlier D&D books from the beginning), but that didn't make the deities themselves or the overall pantheon more interesting.

If there's something intrinsic to the Greyhawk pantheons that lets them eclipse the FR deities in terms of quality, then I'd honestly like people to inform me as to what it is.

In a word, family. One of the intrinsic parts of any decently well realized pagan pantheon is that it's going to have a meaty soap opera going on of who has married who, and who has slept with who, and who is related to who and so forth. A good pagan pantheon mimics the structure and conflicts of a small tribe of people, or sometimes several small rival tribes. Evolved polytheistic religions pick up these ideas of the deities as incarnations of abstract philosophical concepts and lay that over the top, but the core is always this tribal soap opera instantly recognizable to anyone who has lived in a fairly small community. There are other things, but that's a good of a start as any.