D&D 5E Why FR Is "Hated"

[Maxperson]

That wasn't about whether people liked the change or not. It's about the costs of changing what people know and expect. It's about being caught in the middle of running an FR adventure realizing that a major plot thread depends on stuff you changed. It's about players assuming things to be true that aren't in your world, or you assuming players understanding something they don't.

I've found that it's pretty easy to change the plot threads to match any changes that have happened. I've also found that those issues you mentioned about assumptions vanish with a simple sentence to the players. "I run the Forgotten Realms up through the Time of Troubles, but some things are different.". *POOF* The assumptions vanish since they are aware that what they ordinarily assume may not be true. They actually go out of their way to try to find the changes and enjoy them when they come.

 

[Caliban]

Okay, I wasn't really addressing that to you; I was addressing it to the thread.

If you aren't addressing it to me, you shouldn't be quoting me in your response.

 

[Maxperson]

Golarion offers very few major good NPCs; FR offers a number of them, that have solved everything in published adventures, and as published could frequently wake up, solve an adventure, and return home in time for breakfast. Given that one of the continuing questions in D&D games seems to be "why are the PCs the ones who are doing this/getting the job, besides the meta-answer that they're the PCs?", I prefer to have, at least at higher levels, the dearth of NPCs who could even in theory could do the job.

The answer is not that they are PCs. The answer is that Elminster is busy countering Fzoul. The Simbul has her hands full with Thay. And so on. These NPCs are busy with their own plots and the PCs are the only ones that can handle this plot. If they fail, the world ends for them AND those NPCs. Nobody is going to come in at the last moment to save them and the world if they are about to fail.

 

[Sadras]

I've found that it's pretty easy to change the plot threads to match any changes that have happened. I've also found that those issues you mentioned about assumptions vanish with a simple sentence to the players. "I run the Forgotten Realms up through the Time of Troubles, but some things are different.". *POOF* The assumptions vanish since they are aware that what they ordinarily assume may not be true. They actually go out of their way to try to find the changes and enjoy them when they come.

Exactly. Here's a stinker

Personally I found it easier to change things within Forgotten Realms Lore to suit my campaign than to change the mechanics within 4e to suit the game I wanted to run.

 

[Maxperson]

Which is pretty much what I've been saying all the way along. No might about it. It's a generic sandbox (and I'm not even convinced too much about the sandbox either - too much of the setting is detailed for it to be a sandbox to me) that doesn't really offer anything to me that I can't get from a dozen other products.

Details have nothing to do with whether a game is a sandbox or not. You only have to be able to pick and choose whatever direction you want to go. FR is very sandbox. It's one of the most open settings there is.

 

[Cyrinishad]

Details have nothing to do with whether a game is a sandbox or not. You only have to be able to pick and choose whatever direction you want to go. FR is very sandbox. It's one of the most open settings there is.

I'm jumping back into the Thread to give a +1 to this...

Any game, in any setting, is presented with the the fact that simply introducing any number of PCs changes the Lore & Assumptions of a setting... So, in my mind, the FR setting (and all the associated canon) are just possibilities and rumors, until proven as fact through a PCs in-game knowledge...

 

[Staffan]

Golarion offers minimal metaplot, whereas FR seems to have blown everything up on a regular basis. Same complaint I have with Dragonlance and sympathize with on Traveller.

Technically, Golarion has metaplot. I believe the timeline is synched to ours. It's just that it happens via the adventure paths so the PCs are the ones who make things change, and in most cases the events happen in locations far from one another.

But the adventure paths are definitely intended to take place sequentially, which is mostly visible in the Varisia-based paths. Things that happen in Rise of the Runelords are relevant to things that happen in Jade Regent and, especially, in Shattered Star. But they're not particularly relevant to the events of, for example, Mummy's Mask or Skull and Shackles.

 

[Satyrn]

Isnt it like the reason why Thor and the Hulk dont show up in an Iron man movie? Because it is an Iron man movie. Or is that just meta-thinking?

But it's Stan Lee who is Elminster.

 

[Davelozzi]

I've been lurking on this thread but haven't bothered commenting yet since it got so big so fast, and because it is such a hotly contested topic, but it seems like the Realms needed a little love so I will finally throw in my two coppers. I've been a FR fan since the early days, on and off. I loved the old gray box and most of the original run of FR_ sourcebooks, especially FR5 Savage Frontier and the Tethyr part of FR3 Empires of the Sands. I had a FR campaign that I ran for probably about 6-7 years through junior high and high school that was by far my most memorable campaign. It never really ended in an official sense but just went on a mostly permanent hiatus when we all went off to college (where I ran another FR campaign). We did play through the Time of Troubles in that campaign (not the actual adventure trilogy, just our own stuff against the ToT backdrop), though in later years I had a low opinion of the ToT and wished we had left it out of our version of the Realms.

As the 2e era wore on, I thought that the bloat started to kick in as more and more of the products were just uninspired rehashes of earlier products (though some were decent, like the City of Splendors boxed set, which was a nice expansion over the earlier FR1 Waterdeep and the North, and some were excellent like Faiths & Avatars). Late 2e had some pretty good stuff, in particular I enjoyed the attention to detail and background in products by Stephen E. Schend like Lands of Intrigue and Cormanthyr: Empire of the Elves, though his writing style was perhaps a bit bland.

As a kid, I enjoyed a lot of the early novels, but as the years wore on and I got older, I thought they went way, way down hill (or maybe my tastes just matured, whatever). I specifically remember reading some book where Elminster was basically bathing in a pile of magic items in Myth Drannor or something and I just thought it was so ridiculous I couldn't read another FR novel ever.

By the time 3e came out, I was pretty much over the Realms. I did think that the FRCS was a pretty solid campaign setting reference, however, even if I was annoyed by the changes to the maps and some of they storylines like the return of Netheril (interestingly because that original FR campaign I ran was a party who was dedicated to uncovering secrets of lost Netheril and had it continued I probably would have had a back in time element a la Arcane Age, which was released later). I picked up 4-5 3e Realms products but played in a homebrew in these years, then ran a larger setting agnostic Red Hand of Doom campaign.

Everything read about the direction of 4e as a game turned me off so I went to went to Pathfinder as ruleset and Golarion as a campaign world and completely missed the 4e Realms. I was running Rise of the Runelords until my kids came along and I didn't have time so the game petered out halfway through the AP. From here I had a seven year hiatus from gaming all together, and just recently got brought back into the fold when my nephews picked up the 5e D&D Starter Set and needed my help to show them the ropes.

Since then, I've gotten back into D&D and the Realms both, and I have to say that I think the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide is one of the best versions of the Realms I have seen in years. I know it gets no love, and that it lacks a lot in the way of details, but I really think that in terms of a setting to play in, they have reset it in all the right ways, and it is probably the version of the setting most suited the kind of campaign I want to run since the old gray box in 1e. The world has returned to a points of light setting, ripe for exploration and adventure, and players are finally squarely the focus again. I am not sure why it seems like so few people appreciate this as it seems like what a lot of people ask for. I guess those people, like many of you in this thread, have already written off the Realms, and I get that.

That said, I detest the Spellplague and pretty much everything I read that happened during the 4e era and the 100 year time jump, and if I was running the current timeline Realms I would probably pretend all of that never happened and just play in the current year while conveniently ignoring the recent history. I just started a Storm King's Thunder campaign and had a lot of trouble deciding whether or not I wanted to do just that (play in the current default timeline but play down the recent history), but ultimately decided that since a number of the players in this campaign overlap from my childhood and college FR games, I would rather feel like we were sort of picking up where we left off, so I am setting the game in 1368 FR, just about 7-10 years in game time later than my earlier campaigns ended.

Whew, that was more long winded that I wanted it to be, I probably didn't need to recap the entire history of my relationship with the Realms. In summary though, I will just say that the Realms has a lot to offer, and a lot of baggage as well, so I can totally see both sides of the issue, but short of doing a total reboot, I think that what WotC has done with the 5e Realms is about as good as they could have in terms of presenting a classic style setting for the the default style of D&D adventures. If you have no interest in the Realms, yeah, don't bother, of course, but if you like the setting and have been turned off by some of the later incarnations of it, I think the current stuff is worth a look. Your mileage may vary.

 

[Bacon Bits]

You don't need all that. When I 1st ran the Realms I only had the 1994 boxed set. You can easily run with the Grey Box, FR adventures, FRCS or the 4E book.

Yeah, but the problem is, none of those books are entirely compatible with each other.

First there's 1e. You start with FR Campaign Setting greybox from '87.

Then 2e comes about, and the 2e FR Campaign Setting and FR Adventures. And the Time of Troubles. A bunch of gods change, a bunch of lore changes, magic changes, races change, and a few lines on the map change.

Then 3e comes out, with the FRCS white book. There's no real cataclysm, they still change a bunch of gods, a bunch of lore, magic, races, and a few lines on the map.

Then 4e comes out, with the FR Campaign Guide and Player's Guide. And the Spellplague. A bunch of gods change, a bunch of lore changes, magic changes, races change, and a few lines on the map change.

Then 5e comes out, with Tales from the Sword Coast. And the Sundering. A bunch of gods change, a bunch of lore changes, magic changes, races change, and a few lines on the map change.


What I dislike about Forgotten Realms is that every edition there's a cataclysm or upheaval to canonically explain with lore the change in mechanics, and even when there isn't, they still overhaul the entire campaign setting. It feels like the rug gets pulled out from under you constantly. Deities don't feel eternal. They feel like soap opera characters. Lore doesn't feel consistent. It feels designed by committee. The physical laws of the world seemingly change with the wind. They reinvent the campaign setting every time the rulebooks change. It makes it feel like the game rules dictate the events of the campaign setting, rather than the campaign setting being a fictional world that players and DMs get to explore using whatever game rules they like and making their own stories with it. It feels like the tail is wagging the dog. It's WotC saying, "We changed the game rules, so you must update your campaign setting." It feels like Forgotten Realms only exists to sell the current version of the rules. No matter how true that is from a business perspective, I shouldn't notice that that's the case when I open a FR setting book.

Let's say I make a Middle Earth campaign setting for my role playing game set during the Third Age. Then I change the mechanical rules of my game for a second edition. I include a cataclysmic event called the "Dragonbirth" and now there's dragons all over Middle Earth. Rivendell has been burned to the ground, and much of Mirkwood and Fanghorn was destroyed. Would you be interested in running every future campaign in this Middle Earth, knowing that all content produced in the future from adventures to new revisions of the campaign setting would never go back to the time of Mordor and the Ring of the books?

Or I do the same think in Star Trek. Then in my revision for second edition, I destroy Vulcan before the original series even begins. Even if my new lore is fantastic, you might see how longtime fans wouldn't be interested in an entirely new timeline. Similarly, if I completely change Klingon appearance I need a pretty good excuse for the changes.

Now, no, there's nothing at all stopping me from running new content in the old campaign setting... except when that new content includes new revisions. If in my chosen FR setting Bane is dead, I'm going to be a little irritated when Bane is the main antagonist in your new adventure. Worse, what happens when DM knows 1e FR, player 1 knows 2e FR, player 2 knows 3e FR, etc. It's a vipers nest of mixed continuity and nobody is looking at the campaign world the same. We're all sitting at the same game table in the same campaign, but somehow we're not actually playing in the same campaign setting anymore.

Bottom line is that consistency, not variety, is key to forming a campaign setting with memorable lore, and it's memorable lore that makes a setting worth playing.