D&D 5E Why FR Is "Hated"

[The Crimson Binome]

Um... why in the world would Elminster, or Drizzt, or any of the other major NPCs be doing in a river town in the Western Heartlands? Surely they are busy keeping the world safe from other threats closer to home, and not worried about the most recent goblin attack on outlying villages in my town's area!

At low levels, sure, Elminster is too busy to handle whatever goblins the party is dealing with. By the time the party hits level 20, they are the equal of Elminster, and the threat they face is global in scale. That's what epic-level heroes do, is that they face threats to the entire world.

Either Elminster and the other Legends of the Realm should be showing up to help, or there has to be some good reason for why they are not. What could possibly be more important than saving the world?

 

[Maxperson]

I want my campaign settings to be about me integrating my ideas as a DM and highlighting the actions of my players. FR is just packed with Mary Sues who do all the heavy lifting. Also I want more humanoid-centric intrigue, there are precious few large, powerful and relatively stable kingdoms to play with. The Sword Coast is a bunch of city states that seem to exist as adventurer lily pads rather than hot spots for plots and wickedness. Say what you will about Grayhawk but it at least had some good, old feudalism to draw players in from time to time.

That's just it, though. They don't do all the heavy lifting. The PCs get to do all of saving the world without the interference of Elminster or anyone else. Why? Because they are off doing their own thing and they can't stop in the middle to take care of something else. If the PCs fail to save the world, the world ends.

 

[Hussar]

So you think that WotC was lying when it said that FR is overwhelmingly the most liked setting? And that they chose the FR as their main focus for books in 3e(prior to Hasbro) for the hell of it?

Umm, that's not right. Greyhawk was the main focus of 3e, not Forgotten Realms. 3e used Greyhawk as the baseline setting - gods, locations, heck one of the first big adventures was Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. It wasn't until after Hasbro got into the act that Forgotten Realms got any real traction.

 

[Maxperson]

Umm, that's not right. Greyhawk was the main focus of 3e, not Forgotten Realms. 3e used Greyhawk as the baseline setting - gods, locations, heck one of the first big adventures was Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. It wasn't until after Hasbro got into the act that Forgotten Realms got any real traction.

Er, you are seriously equating a few lines of text about the Greyhawk gods, a few magic item and spell names, and 5 modules, with 31 Forgotten Realms product releases, most of which were hardcover books? Greyhawk didn't even come close to being the main focus of 3e. You could take out 5 realms products, reduce Greyhawk to 0, and still have 26 more.

 

[Hussar]

Well I'm using it because the maps already drawn & has been on my shelf for years & years....
And that Encyclopedia Britannica detail? It's a tool. If I don't feel like making up all the details of place x I'll just google it then pick & choose.

Fair enough. And that's the difference. You HAVE that tool (I presume). You bought the books and have the option of using that material if you like. I never did. Outside of a couple of FR books back in 2e, I never bought any FR stuff. It wasn't for me.

So, for me, as someone who has never really bought into FR, what does using FR offer to me that any other setting doesn't? Like I said, if I'm going to only use a tiny sliver of the FR material out there, why would I bother using FR? Why not use any other setting, where, instead of ignoring 99% of the published material for that setting, I can use 99% of it?

That's why I am using Primeval Thule. Could I run a campaign like this in FR? Oh quite probably. Chult would work quite well for what I'm doing. I'm quite sure there are other regions of FR that would also fit in a pinch. That's why they can add in pretty much any module from any setting into FR - the setting is so big that you can find a place for anything.

Fair enough. And for those who have a grounding in the setting, that's a huge bonus. But, for me, it doesn't offer me anything that another setting doesn't, and, comes with all this other stuff that I have no interest in, don't want to use, and just confuses the issue.

I'll give you an example. In Thule, there are no planes. Demons, and various other extra planar critters are now called Extraterrean (sp) and are considered to come from other planets. There's also a very large element of Cthulhu Mythos in the setting. Additionally, clerics in Thule are considered, more or less, just a wizard with better organizational skills. Being a priest of a Lawful Good (or Chaotic Evil) god does not dictate your behavior. Once you are a cleric, that's it. You don't "pray" for your spells from any god. They just come, just like a wizard. Which means that clerics are no longer constrained by their class to behave a certain way. ((And, it tends to mean that all clerics are far more like cults and not in a good way ))

This is something I can't do in Forgotten Realms. Not without ejecting pretty much everything to do with the gods in the setting. So, even though I could run my "Jungle exploration" style campaign in Chult, it would still be a Forgotten Realms campaign, complete with the setting assumptions of that setting.

IOW, if I'm going to strip out 99% of the lore of the setting, why would I use that setting? Why not use a setting that better suits what I want?

 

[Hussar]

Er, you are seriously equating a few lines of text about the Greyhawk gods, a few magic item and spell names, and 5 modules, with 31 Forgotten Realms product releases, most of which were hardcover books? Greyhawk didn't even come close to being the main focus of 3e. You could take out 5 realms products, reduce Greyhawk to 0, and still have 26 more.

You might want to check your dates. Hasbro acquired WotC in 1999. The first Forgotten Realms product wasn't released until October of 2000 with the FRCS coming out in June 2001. I was quibbling with your characterization that 3e was grounded in the Realms before Hasbro got into the act. That's not true.

Remember, this is what you said:

So you think that WotC was lying when it said that FR is overwhelmingly the most liked setting? And that they chose the FR as their main focus for books in 3e(prior to Hasbro) for the hell of it?

It's that "prior to Hasbro" part that is mistaken. Prior to Hasbro, there was not a single Forgotten Realms supplement produced.

 

[Maxperson]

You might want to check your dates. Hasbro acquired WotC in 1999. The first Forgotten Realms product wasn't released until October of 2000 with the FRCS coming out in June 2001. I was quibbling with your characterization that 3e was grounded in the Realms before Hasbro got into the act. That's not true.

I don't hang with .5's for editions. I refer to the one single edition as 3e.

 

[Hussar]

I don't hang with .5's for editions. I refer to the one single edition as 3e.

But... that has nothing to do with what you said. You said, and I'll quote it a THIRD time:

And that they chose the FR as their main focus for books in 3e(prior to Hasbro) for the hell of it?

How, exactly, did they chose the FR as their main focus for books in 3e prior to Hasbro when they did not produce a SINGLE FR book, supplement or product until TWO YEARS AFTER Hasbro acquired WotC?

Or, did you mean after the Hasbro acquisition?

 

[Maxperson]

But... that has nothing to do with what you said. You said, and I'll quote it a THIRD time:

How, exactly, did they chose the FR as their main focus for books in 3e prior to Hasbro when they did not produce a SINGLE FR book, supplement or product until TWO YEARS AFTER Hasbro acquired WotC?

Or, did you mean after the Hasbro acquisition?

The first 3e FR release happened the year 3e was released. The first 3e Greyhawk release happened that same year. Clearly the amount of subsequent releases, Greyhawk almost none and FR 25 shows what the focus of the edition was.

Edit: 3e was released AFTER Hasbro bought WotC, so yes, I'm talking about after Hasbro bought them, and so are you since we are discussing 3e.

 

[Hussar]

The first 3e FR release happened the year 3e was released. The first 3e Greyhawk release happened that same year. Clearly the amount of subsequent releases, Greyhawk almost none and FR 25 shows what the focus of the edition was.

Edit: 3e was released AFTER Hasbro bought WotC, so yes, I'm talking about after Hasbro bought them, and so are you since we are discussing 3e.

Thank you. That was my quibble.