D&D 5E (2014) Why FR Is "Hated"

[Aldarc]

If only someone would invent GOOGLE....

...then they would discover that these legacy settings are no longer supported.

 

[MackMcMacky]

There is no need to run in the Forgotten Realms if you don't like abundant ultra-powerful NPCs in every region, ubiquitously powerful magic, etc. Pulling that out of the Forgotten Realms is more work than just building your own setting, assuming you wanted to use any adventures and supplements that were put out.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Selvarin said just "the player" is the problem. I find your argument more persuasive yet more of a non sequitur. Players being unwilling to play in a setting is a perfectly valid reason to dislike a setting. And if players don't want to play in FR because they're deeply familiar with it and would prefer not to play in a version of it that doesn't match their conception of it, that's a perfectly valid reason for them.

I don't know if I wuold agree it's perfectly valid. I can understand it, certainly, but I would also expect such a player to get over it, I think. Maybe that's just me....but I would almost always prefer to play the game than to not play because the map is different than I expected, or because there are no Lords of Waterdeep or whatever.

But as much as it probably seems like I am advocating strongly for the Realms, I am not so tied to any setting to care that much. I prefer DMs do what they want with a setting to make it their own or to tell the story they want to tell. Now, I'm sure there's a line that could be crossed in regard to such changes...taking away teh Force from Star Wars would kind of irrevocably change the setting, so that would seem odd.....but generally, I just don't hold settings in such reverence.

The reason why you like the Forgotten Realms is because you own a lot of Forgotten Realms and therefore you must like it, else spending all that money on it would be a mistake, and people don't like to believe they made mistakes. That's real psychology and is certainly a factor to some minor extent in many cases, but it doesn't do the conversation any good to ignore what you're saying and insist on that. Generally greater understanding is not reached by dismissing the opinions of other people and telling them "that can't be the real reason, because that's not a problem."

I'm not trying to dismiss anyone's opinions. I am challenging those opinions a bit, yes, to see if there is more to them or perhaps if those opinions are not based on the factors that we may think.

For example, I actually only own three Forgotten Realms gaming products....the 3E Campaign Setting, City of the Spider Queen, and the SCAG. I have read some of the novels over the years, mostly the early Salvatore Drizzt books, and a handful of others. Never any Greenwood books, oddly enough. So I haven't really invested all that much in the setting, really. And the only product I think that actually makes the Realms worthwhile and which suits the needs of an "all in one" type of product is the 3E Campaign Setting. That book is entertaining, and has a lot of different concepts and story ideas that any DM could use. SCAG does so to a lesser extent, and more with a "here's some ideas, make them your own" approach.

So my defense is not based on my financial investment in the Realms....or at least I would not have said so. But now that you mention it, perhaps there is something to that. It's hard to say. I've certainly spent more money on other settings that I enjoy more, and some that I enjoy less, to be honest.

That would be fine the first time. Heck, even the second time, just to make sure. But, after repeated statements detailing that I don't like the Realms because of the volume of material I feel that I would need to use in order to play in that setting (whether you think you need to use it or not is irrelavent - I'm telling you what I feel), I get the feeling that my issues are being pretty much ignored.

I'm not trying to ignore your issues. I think it's more that I think your assessment is off. I think you can effectively play a Realms game with only one of a few key products being "required". I don't even know if any product is required given the presence of online info and wikis and the like. I do think having one source makes things much easier, though.

My game also takes place on Golarion, the Pathfinder setting. For that, all I own is the Inner Sea World Guide, the Rise of the Runelords adventure path, and the Kingmaker adventure path. There is a plethora of additional books that further detail the world and its elements. I have a friend who runs Pathfinder Society for a local store and he has tons of books on Golarion. I think one comes out every other month or so....it's insane. So many more than I even knew existed. But that doesn't stop me from running part of my game on Golarion. Luckily, that friend doesn't question how I run things since he's a player in my game.

Well, fair enough. We're talking about needing a single source book now. Ok, fair enough. Although, running a War of the Lance era game without at least having the modules would be very difficult. You could run something that is loosely based around Dragonlance, but, anyone with even a passing familiarity with the setting wouldn't recognize it outside of a couple of proper nouns. The DL Adventures book (the one I'm assuming you're talking about) really does require the modules in order to make much sense. There are a LOT of references to the modules contained in that book. Which makes sense. DLA was meant as a supplement to the modules, not really a campaign book in and of itself.

I mean, while DLA does have a map of Ansalon, it's a very sparse map with almost no detail. It basically has the capital cities of each country and that's about it. You'd have a pretty uphill battle running a campaign set in War of the Lance with just that book.

But, again, that's MY POINT. I could run a WotL campaign with the modules and one book. That's it. That's all it would take to run a pretty much full on canon DL campaign of that period. A pretty minor investment to get all the canon available.

I've read the novels when I was a kid. And I can definitely run a War of the Lance game, no problem. I don't even have the Dragonlance Adventures book, although a buddy of mine did back in the day. But I don't even think I need that to run a game. I know the major players, the general sequence of events, the major locations. I can have PCs effectively replace the Companions or I can have them work in conjunction with the Companions, or I can have them doing something tangential to the content of the novels. Mechanically, a few rules tweaks for classes/races, and I'd be good to go.

I think the question of timeline is also a big factor. If the powerful NPCs are a problem, then have it take place before they're around. Or after. Have the game take place at the time of the founding of Waterdeep. Or during the days of the New Republic. Or before the Greyhawk Wars. Or in the days leading up to the Cataclysm. It's an easy way to use the elements of the setting that you like, while ejecting those you don't, and also justifying any other changes.

If I wanted to have that level of canon in a Forgotten Realms game, I'd need dozens, if not a couple of hundred supplements. Monster books, various country guides, class splats (TWO full gods books alone in 2e), dozens of Dragon magazine articles, on and on and on.

Do I absolutely need these? Maybe not. But, the fact that they are there means that I am NOT INTERESTED in starting. That mountain of material means that I have zero interest in running an FR game. None. Zero. Nada. It is a barrier to my entry into the setting.

Since that barrier doesn't exist for a lot of other settings, I would much rather run those settings. I have no problems running published settings. I ran Scarred Lands for years in 3e. I am running a Primeval Thule game right now. Published settings isn't the problem. FOR ME the problem is any time I pick up a Forgotten Realms supplement, I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that that supplement will reference several, if not dozens of other sources. Sorry, not interested.

I can understand not wanting to buy a bunch of guides. I agree with you there. But the fact that I only have a couple of FR products, and two of the three of them were for 3E, and I am able to run the Realms, I don't agree that all those products are needed. If you think they would be based on the expectations or demands of the players in your group, then I don't blame you for simply shooting down the Realms as an option for your games.

 

[Mercule]

I'm not trying to dismiss anyone's opinions. I am challenging those opinions a bit, yes, to see if there is more to them or perhaps if those opinions are not based on the factors that we may think.

He'res part of the problem: There are at least two objections to the Realms.

1) The Realms is a garbage setting. While I happen to share this opinion, I do recognize that it's just an opinion. If a group likes the Sword Coast (say) and finds value in the SCAG, an adventure set in the Realms, etc., I have zero qualms with that, whatsoever. We can have a conversation about the merits and flaws of the Realm, but my personal feelings about the quality of the Realms is really only secondary to....

2) The Realms is the only setting getting any real coverage. Yes, you had CoS, but that was written almost as being a planar excursion to characters who started in the Realms. Other than that, there are five (soon to be six) other, full-length adventures that are pretty tightly coupled to the Realms. I tried to adapt PotA to Eberron, and the overland map actually provided many subtle difficulties to the conversion -- and that's probably the easiest of the adventures to adapt. It's not just a matter of "eh, ignore the Realms". It's very, very close to "play in the Realms or don't use our adventures". Additionally, they've started using names from the Realms for non-adventure/setting books. While I don't really mind including the Realms, I don't like them being the only source drawn upon. While using an (IMO) inferior setting in this way no doubt a factor in my frustration, I'm confident in saying that I would not be happy with any setting in this position.

So, which conversation would you like to challenge? I'm actually more than willing to have either. But, number 2 is the one that's going to eventually drive me from the game.

 

[Demetrios1453]

There is no need to run in the Forgotten Realms if you don't like abundant ultra-powerful NPCs in every region, ubiquitously powerful magic, etc. Pulling that out of the Forgotten Realms is more work than just building your own setting, assuming you wanted to use any adventures and supplements that were put out.

I'm curious how you figure that leaving out a few things is actually not as easy as building an entire new setting from scratch. I run the Realms by excluding or placing into the background most of those, and there's virtually no work at all to do so.

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[Chaosmancer]

"There's too much info!"---Don't use it. If all you need are the maps and some general ideas on what's what, boom. You're in.

"There's too many high-level characters!"--Easily remedied. You may still dislike the ones published in 'canon' but, again, it's easily ignored.

At which point are we no longer using Forgotten Realms?

If I ran a game where the players started in the Oasis town of Waterdeep where the last true dragon held off the Sorcerer-King’s armies from Thay… is that the Forgotten Realms?

I’ve got Waterdeep, Thay, evil mages, is that enough?

Probably not, being an oasis city means deserts, I’m not using the right map.

So, I’ll pull out the map. Game takes place in the Port City of Waterdeep which is ran by a Council of Gnomish inventors who have good trade relations with the Kender Lords of the Sword Mountains. The main villains will be the Lich Gondendes and his armies which reside in the Kryptgarden Forest.

Is it a realms game?

For the argument, a lot of people will say yes, of course it is, but no one who is asked if they want to play a Forgotten Realms game will think of this when they are asked. It isn’t really a Realms game, or even really based in the Realms.

The argument of “You can just ignore everything and it is still a Realms game” means one of two things to mean.

1) You care so little about the setting that it doesn’t matter what actually happens, in which case that is a poor reason to want to like a setting
2) You are just trying to win the argument.

You have to know something about the Realms to claim you are running a Realms game, and once you accept you have to know something, you really need to learn a lot to make it work. If instead you just ignore everything and do what you want, well, that’s fine... what about this setting makes it worth using then? IF it is so easy to just toss everything to the side... why use any of it at all then?

I have been ruminating about something as of late, particularly following the posts about the frustration of binary choice that Forgotten Realms represents. When people say how D&D 5E is not just Forgotten Realms because the books mention other settings, how would that appear to someone completely new to D&D? Someone who has never seen D&D before 5th Edition? Would this new player (either a GM or player to-be) be able to pick up a 5E book to gain an adequate basis of knowledge for Forgotten Realms? Likely. This endeavor is further aided by the published 5E adventures that are set in the world. What about when Greyhawk, Krynn, Eberron, Planescape, or Dark Sun are mentioned in the published materials? How does one get a grasp of these settings from the published materials? What does it look or sound like when these materials are mentioned without any supplemental publications that anchor the setting for them? What are these places? Who are these names they mention? Who are these faiths at the back of the PHB? What are these settings even like or about? This is far less of a problem for Forgotten Realms. It's the de facto default lens through which the game is viewed. SCAG. The majority of published adventures. Adventurer's League. Even Greyhawk's classic dungeons (and characters) have been sacked and pillaged for the glory of Forgotten Realms. This is the privilege that Forgotten Realms enjoys. Other settings may be mentioned, but there is virtually no published support for them for any new or returning player.

If only someone would invent GOOGLE....

Because that actually helps?

Seriously, if your first introduction to Dungeons and Dragons was picking up Storm King’s Thunder… how does the Google solve the problem of having no way to run a game in Dark Sun or Eberron.

Sure, if you saw the name and got curious enough you google and find a wiki page that gives you some basics. And you think that’s cool… so you, brand new player of 3 months, goes out, buys all the old 4e or 2e or both sets of Dark Sun and converts all of the material you need into 5e…

I seriously doubt it.

More than likely, you Google it, learn a little bit, realize it doesn’t exist in 5e and say “Oh, well I’ll wait until DnD releases some new content for it, then I’ll play a game there.” And at the rate things are going that is not going to happen.

We are fast approaching 3 years of gaming, and the only place you can buy 5e material for is the Forgotten Realms. I’m not counting Barovia or Ravenloft because our new player who does not spend time on these forums probably has no clue that Ravenloft is a separate setting. I don’t hate the Realms, I don’t care enough about them to hate them, but I can see where a lot of people are getting angry about the fact that the Realms are strangling everything else out of existence.

“Are your books on your shelves being destroyed?”

No, they don’t exist in the first place. I own zero setting books for any DnD setting (except for Forgotten Realms) because after buying the Core set for 4e the only other DnD books I have ever purchased are 5e products. My 5e material for Greyhawk, Dark Sun, Eberron, et. all does not exist. I’ve never bothered to give those settings more than a cursory glance because I am on these forums enough to see people talking about them. If that trend continues the people who care about those settings aren’t going to exist either, because there are no new players for those settings if nobody ever produces content for them.

That is where a majority of Realms hate comes from I think, the fact that it is preventing other settings from getting any attention besides a blurb telling DMs “Oh yeah, you can set this is Eberron if you want, we won’t stop you” to which most new DMs are like, “Great, no idea what Eberron is, glad other people can have fun with non-DnD products” because that is what it seems like to them.

 

[hawkeyefan]

He's part of the problem: There are at least two objections to the Realms.

1) The Realms is a garbage setting. While I happen to share this opinion, I do recognize that it's just an opinion. If a group likes the Sword Coast (say) and finds value in the SCAG, an adventure set in the Realms, etc., I have zero qualms with that, whatsoever. We can have a conversation about the merits and flaws of the Realm, but my personal feelings about the quality of the Realms is really only secondary to....

2) The Realms is the only setting getting any real coverage. Yes, you had CoS, but that was written almost as being a planar excursion to characters who started in the Realms. Other than that, there are five (soon to be six) other, full-length adventures that are pretty tightly coupled to the Realms. I tried to adapt PotA to Eberron, and the overland map actually provided many subtle difficulties to the conversion -- and that's probably the easiest of the adventures to adapt. It's not just a matter of "eh, ignore the Realms". It's very, very close to "play in the Realms or don't use our adventures". Additionally, they've started using names from the Realms for non-adventure/setting books. While I don't really mind including the Realms, I don't like them being the only source drawn upon. While using an (IMO) inferior setting in this way no doubt a factor in my frustration, I'm confident in saying that I would not be happy with any setting in this position.

So, which conversation would you like to challenge? I'm actually more than willing to have either. But, number 2 is the one that's going to eventually drive me from the game.

We can talk about both, if that's cool.

1) This is definitely a matter of opinion. I also used to share this opinion. I was not a fan of the realms early on...this was most likely due to seeing an incomplete picture of things. I read a couple of teh novels, and other than a few, most were pretty bad. Entertaining perhaps, but not much about the setting that I really felt was very compelling. The only novels I read that were strongly "Realmsish" for lack of a better term was the Avatar Trilogy. Which as a kid, I thought had some cool concepts, but which I recognized even then was more about establishing a new status quo based on rules mechanics than anything else. And I would even say that to this day, I'm not all that strongly a proponent of the Realms....it's an okay setting in that it has a lot of various regions in which you can base different kinds of games and so on, but it's all fairly Tolkienesque. But I'd say the same for almost all of the old settings. I quite liked the 3E Campaign Setting book. That was the first time I ever considered running a Realms based game.

2) This is more a matter of fact, in that clearly FR is the setting getting all the focus of the current edition. On one had, I agree with you that this is a bad thing. I'd prefer to have more variety of content. I find the material easy to port, but that's gonna very from person to person, and I know others may find it difficult. It also depends on which settings you want to port things to. But on the other hand, I can kind of understand WotC's decision to focus on one setting. As this thread can attest, and others like it, a setting alone seems to be enough reason for people to buy or not buy a product. There's a portion of the existing fan base that refuses to buy certain products if they are associated with certain settings. That's not a practice I woudl follow, but many do...and it seems WotC has heard them, and they've decided to minimize that as much as possible, and go with the most pop-culture present setting they have. So while I may lament their decision along with you, I can also recognize the reasoning behind it.

 

[Cyrinishad]

We are Realms... Eberron's magical and alchemical distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is Futile.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

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 ))

I now have a reason to check out Primeval Thule. Probably still won't ever run it, but it's now flagged in my brain as "interesting."

 

[Ratskinner]

I can't say that I find the Realms are -subject to any more hate than is directed at the other settings, proportional to popularity of course.

Then again, I really don't care about any of the settings so long as they don't impact the core rules too much. So maybe color me "meh'' about the whole thing.

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