D&D 5E Why FR Is "Hated"

[Shasarak]

Heh. When 3e came out with its "NPCs and PCs (and Monsters!) use the same rules" philosophy I thought it was a big, cool improvement on AD&D. It was neat how all the characters in the game were modelled the same.

So how did you do NPCs in ADnD then?

 

[Demetrios1453]

So you come onto a thread about "Why FR is hated" and when people say it's because of how the high-level NPCs are portrayed in the books and how they think they would logically behave in the games, you tell them they're all wrong, and they're the one's breaking basic gaming etiquette. Shouldn't the right to dislike a setting without being told how wrong you are be a part of basic gaming etiquette? And if you think that limits conversation too much, I think you're going to have to tolerate people telling you the way you're running FR is not the way the books describe it.

Many of those here those here who don't like the Realms aren't running Realms games for me to tell them how to run them. To those of you here who hate the Realms and are, for some reason, still running Realms games, I apologize for telling you how to run your games...



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[prosfilaes]

Because the game world is full of adventure and people should be adventuring rather then sitting around in a circle together singing kumbaya.

So the problem with the Indiana Jones movies is that there were archaeologists in academia in the movies instead of Indiana Jones having to face off with Montana Jones and Mississippi Jones at every dig site? PCs should be adventuring, and maybe some evil NPCs should be out there adventuring, but I don't see how it adds to most settings for there to be a huge number of adventurers running around, and it seems counter to the assumptions made in most D&D adventures. I think it rather adds to adventures if there's a cleric in town who can raise dead, but never has, never will adventure and leaves that to the PCs. Megadungeons seem to be the main exception, where it's logical and fun to have multiple adventuring parties running around the same setting.

 

[Caliban]

So you come onto a thread about "Why FR is hated" and when people say it's because of how the high-level NPCs are portrayed in the books and how they think they would logically behave in the games, you tell them they're all wrong, and they're the one's breaking basic gaming etiquette. Shouldn't the right to dislike a setting without being told how wrong you are be a part of basic gaming etiquette? And if you think that limits conversation too much, I think you're going to have to tolerate people telling you the way you're running FR is not the way the books describe it.

Absolutely untrue. You can dislike the FR setting all you want, there are plenty of reasons to prefer other settings.

Not liking the setting doesn't give you the right to tell anyone they are running their own game the wrong way.

Especially if you tell them they are running it the wrong way because they are leaving out the very parts you dislike!

(Not even getting into people trying to tell you how to run NPC's based on books that may have come out years after the game in question. )

 

[Darkness]

This thread has some civility issues. Folks, don't make incivil posts, please.

 

[Satyrn]

So how did you do NPCs in ADnD then?

That was oh so long ago, and I can't remember with any certainty. I think I just named them and never did more than that, although I might have done some up with the abbreviated inline statblock used for monsters, since AD&D just wrote up NPCs (like scouts, soldiers, merchants, etc) as monsters in the Monstrous Compendiums.

However wrong I am about the details, I do know I did not use the rules for PCs since I thought "NPCs use the same rules as PCs" was one of the cool new things about 3e.

 

[prosfilaes]

Not liking the setting doesn't give you the right to tell anyone they are running their own game the wrong way.

Liking a setting doesn't give you the right to tell people they're not liking a setting for the wrong reasons. You want to say that when I don't like FR due to Elminster that I'm reading him wrong, you have every right to get the response "no, you're reading him wrong".

 

[MackMcMacky]

Interestingly, I love both FR's and Greyhawk's histories. But then again, I read real-life history books for fun, so that's just my thing..

Maybe they have fixed the things I disliked about FRealms history/politics/society over the decades. I might have to stare at it. (The free way is to go check out wikis.) I want to be clear. When I say I read history books for fun and work, I'm talking about books from folks like Marc Bloch, Fernand Braudel, Philippe Contamine, William H. McNeil, Alfred Crosby, Colin Renfrew, J.P. Mallory, and Nazeer Ahmed. If you read up enough about how feudalism happens, what technologies lead to what social and political changes, the impact of syncretism, etc. - it makes you likelier to be picky about world-building. It's not that there can't be fantastic other-worldly elements in a society but they should have a reasonable explanation for existence, likely supernatural effects.

Here is how I think - I loathe the idea of priests routinely creating food and water for communities in general but loathe it even more when campaign designers fail to address the huge impact that would have on a society. If food and water are plentiful without tilling the soil then most people won't be peasants. Land won't be as economically important. The economically powerful, therefore, will have built their wealth some other way than being barons and the like.

I never felt that Forgotten Realms had thought things through enough. For example, Secret Councils as heads of government just begs for a coup with new guys as the Secret Council and no one else knowing the better. It's just off-putting.

 

[Caliban]

Liking a setting doesn't give you the right to tell people they're not liking a setting for the wrong reasons. You want to say that when I don't like FR due to Elminster that I'm reading him wrong, you have every right to get the response "no, you're reading him wrong".

Except no one has said that. Except perhaps you.

 

[Shasarak]

So the problem with the Indiana Jones movies is that there were archaeologists in academia in the movies instead of Indiana Jones having to face off with Montana Jones and Mississippi Jones at every dig site? PCs should be adventuring, and maybe some evil NPCs should be out there adventuring, but I don't see how it adds to most settings for there to be a huge number of adventurers running around, and it seems counter to the assumptions made in most D&D adventures. I think it rather adds to adventures if there's a cleric in town who can raise dead, but never has, never will adventure and leaves that to the PCs. Megadungeons seem to be the main exception, where it's logical and fun to have multiple adventuring parties running around the same setting.

So where do these Museums that employ these archaeologists get their displays? Who is going out and getting the stuff until the PCs spontaneously appear in the campaign? Why would I worship a town Cleric that can not armour up to crack a few Orc skulls every now and then?

Like I said, non adventuring NPCs just replace lesser problems with worse problems in my opinion and it is not worth the trade off to chop off my foot to fix an ingrown toenail.