D&D 5E Why FR Is "Hated"

[Selvarin]

One's strengths will also be its weaknesses.

Some random bits thrown together:

Forgotten Realms has a richness, a depth, that few other campaign settings possess. A lot of history, etc., which then gave rise to the need for Realms scholars who could look at manuscripts for authors and proofread for FR historical realms errors. And, of course, Super-Elminster and Weepy-Cryin' Drizzt who sucked the air out of the room, in a manner of speaking. Your heroes were secondary to these guys, and all of that--and more--was cumulative.

WotC rebooted FR with the advent of 4th Edition, which was hamfisted as ever. In order to get people who didn't like the Realms (for various reasons) to reconsider the Realms, they tore it a new one. (Literally, in the case of the dwarven rift to the south.) Gods were murdered, etc...so that alienated Realms fans. And I don't remember many people who disliked Realms turning around and saying, "Oh yeah. That's my kind of place now." And thus the 5th Edition "We're not saying we screwed up but we're kinda putting everything back to where it was. Sorry for schtupping your campaign world."

On a random note, moving up the Realms timelines wasn't a bad thing. That wasn't such a bad thing. Meh. And while the 'DePowering' of Mystra's Chosen was eh hokey, it was somewhat necessary. I prefer the uber-characters be a bit more normal and further in the background where they belong.

 

[Selvarin]

Double-post. My bad! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Hussar]

Maybe, but it's probably also influenced by the division of fans/customers into so many different product lines as well. One of the things that made those 30 greatest AD&D adventures so great is the broad, shared experiences in the community.

Fair point, but, considering FR has been around as long as a lot of those old classic modules, and in some cased quite a lot longer, I'm not sure we can point to that. Then again, a lot of the push for Forgotten Realms was during the 2e years, when modules were... less than spectacular for the most part.

But, it's been about 17 years since 3e hit the floor running and still there aren't any really stand out FR modules, while there certainly are a number of very stand out 3e modules.

Like I said, FR has lots of great things going for it (not great for me, particularly, but, I can at least appreciate excellence when I see it) but module support isn't one of them.

 

[Zardnaar]

Fair point, but, considering FR has been around as long as a lot of those old classic modules, and in some cased quite a lot longer, I'm not sure we can point to that. Then again, a lot of the push for Forgotten Realms was during the 2e years, when modules were... less than spectacular for the most part.

But, it's been about 17 years since 3e hit the floor running and still there aren't any really stand out FR modules, while there certainly are a number of very stand out 3e modules.

Like I said, FR has lots of great things going for it (not great for me, particularly, but, I can at least appreciate excellence when I see it) but module support isn't one of them.

Erm 3.0 FRCS, Magic of Faerun, Lords of Darkness, off the top of my head.
The late 3.5 FR stuff was pants.

 

[Hussar]

Erm 3.0 FRCS, Magic of Faerun, Lords of Darkness, off the top of my head.
The late 3.5 FR stuff was pants.

Sorry, I'm not following. I thought we were talking about modules. None of those are modules.

 

[Cleon]

Now this has got my complete attention, as before now I'd never heard of such a thing!

Not surprising, Tarantis is the one that never gets any attention.

It's about as forgotten as Judges Guild's smaller city books like Modron or Verbosh.

Lan-"and I probably don't even want to think about the kind of $ it'll take to get a copy of Tarantis"-efan

That never even occurred to me. I bought mine back in the 80s.

How much they go for now? I'll just wander over to the internet and check…

…Ouch! Nostalgia is expensive.

 

[Lanefan]

Not surprising, Tarantis is the one that never gets any attention.

It's about as forgotten as Judges Guild's smaller city books like Modron or Verbosh.

I recently got my mitts on a copy of Verbosh. There's a lot in there, if one has the patience to dig for it (in other words, about normal for JG).

That never even occurred to me. I bought mine back in the 80s.

How much they go for now? I'll just wander over to the internet and check…

…Ouch! Nostalgia is expensive.

Yeah, the two main City State of... packages ain't cheap either, if you can even find one with all the bits in it.

Lanefan

 

[Selvarin]

People are bringing up the classic AD&D module series for comparison, really I think it's apples & oranges. The classic AD&D modules are iconic for a reason, the fact that most are set in the World of Greyhawk is, for the most part, incidental. They're iconic, it's another kind of nostalgia--and I subscribe to that as well. On and off I go and buy NM/M copies of the ones I loved as a kid for that very reason.

Looking back on FR adventures I've purchased and used that are decent, there's: Doom of Daggerdale, Hellgate Keep, Lords of Darkness (encounters each based on anundead of a certain CR/level), N5 Under Illefarn, Wyrmskull Throne, and City of the Spider Queen.

 

[MackMcMacky]

People are bringing up the classic AD&D module series for comparison, really I think it's apples & oranges. The classic AD&D modules are iconic for a reason, the fact that most are set in the World of Greyhawk is, for the most part, incidental. They're iconic, it's another kind of nostalgia--and I subscribe to that as well. On and off I go and buy NM/M copies of the ones I loved as a kid for that very reason.

Looking back on FR adventures I've purchased and used that are decent, there's: Doom of Daggerdale, Hellgate Keep, Lords of Darkness (encounters each based on anundead of a certain CR/level), N5 Under Illefarn, Wyrmskull Throne, and City of the Spider Queen.

It's more than nostalgia. Nostalgia wasn't causing me to feel cheated when I purchased some early Forgotten Realms adventures when they were initially released.

 

[Selvarin]

The classic modules came out late 70's through mid-80's, then Greyhawk started slipping. That was also when the Forgotten Realms arrived on the scene. I guess my question is...Which adventurers were you trying? Was this when AD&D 2.0 came on the scene, or earlier, or later?

With regard to early FR modules, I was not a big fan of the computer game tie-ins or the ones covering Realms-changed-due-to-edition-changes-let's-print-more-cash. That also includes some of the more corporate tie-in adventures that featured Drizzt or one of the other big name uber-characters. Regardless, I'd say I bought some adventures solely because there was Realms material updates included. However, I tended to enjoy the 3rd edition Realms adventures more

Comparing the two, I's day that the Forgotten Realms had richer source material and 'poorer' adventures whereas Greyhawk--aside from the classic boxed set--had poorer/less source material but richer adventures (the Classics). I felt like Greyhawk was cheated out of a greater future because many of those who knew it best and had a good feel for the setting (such as Gygax) stopped managing or contributing at some point. Whether corporate or personal politics or whatever, that kinda petered out.