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

[billd91]

Frankly, I liked the old block method better...

 

[Maxperson]

Sigh, I'm currently on post 994. I must have pissed off a LOT of people recently. I blame the Warlord threads. I had a bit of an.... episode.

It's annoying too cos when someone has blocked you, the "go to last read post" in a thread doesn't work anymore. PITA.

I really hate that this site forces you to block whoever decides to block you. First, I think that everyone has good things to say at least some of the time. You and I have had our differences, but I'd never block you over them. Second, I want to see what everyone has to say. If I respond to a post, I'm not just responding to that person. What I have to say is for everyone in the thread. The person who blocks me isn't going to see my response, so why not let me use his post to talk to everyone else. Third, forcing me to block someone against my will is no different than a school yard bully taking my lunch money. Anyone here who blocks anyone else becomes a bully. That shouldn't be the case. People should be able to block those they don't want to see without becoming a bully.

 

[Mercule]

It's annoying too cos when someone has blocked you, the "go to last read post" in a thread doesn't work anymore. PITA.

That actually explains a lot. I thought it was just because I'd switched browses.

Oh... I must have ticked off a lot of people.

 

[cbwjm]

The app will sometimes show the posts of people you've blocked, not always so I'm not sure exactly what happens to show their message.

Sent from my SM-G925I using EN World mobile app

 

[Ilbranteloth]

My main problem with FR was the meta-plot, particularly since the formative years of the setting was spent under TSR's Comics Code-inspired "Code of Conduct." This problem showed itself primarily in two ways:

1. Plot threads from the core box and sourcebooks get resolved in novels by NPCs, and later sourcebooks assume these things have been taken care of.

1a. Since plot threads keep getting resolved (because Good always wins), new things have to be thrown into the setting every now and then, leading to things like a I-can't-believe-it's-not-Mongols invasion or ancient cities reappearing.

2. Their pantheon gets turned into a gorram soap opera, with new gods rising, old ones dying, portfolios changing hands, changing hands again, gods thought dead return, and so on and so forth. The rise of a new god should be a momentous thing, not "A new god again? Must be Tuesday."

Two of the defining traits of Eberron are, I think, direct reactions to these issues: a frozen timeline, and distant and possibly non-existent gods.

I love the Realms, and have run my campaigns in it since it came out. One of my favorite things is that plot threads move forward in the supplements and the novels. They aren't always "good wins" results - such as the events in Cormyr, and everything went out the window when 4e came along.

It makes the world a living world, and I always encouraged my players to read the novels and the setting materials to expand our shared knowledge of the world.

When the Avatar Crisis occurred, at the time I thought it was an interesting and unique way to explain why the world worked differently than it had before. It explained why the physics of the fantasy world (combat, magic, etc.) was different than before. I still think that it was a unique and somewhat inspired idea, even if a bit clunky at times. The gods dying and rising at that point was OK too, since it was a big deal at that time. The continuation of that - Ed Greenwood's Shadows of the Avatars series was much better than the Avatar series itself, and I didn't mind the idea that the lives of the Gods isn't static. On the other hand, it did get to be too much, and even though I like the idea of gods being living beings, I probably wouldn't have the events in the planes impact the world so directly. The churches of dead gods wouldn't disappear overnight, and their prayers would be answered by other gods. Most importantly, what the mortals believe wouldn't be tied to what's actually happening in the planes. The beliefs and teachings of the church would not match what's going on in the planes.

What I didn't like was the unintended side effects of these lines. First, the power creep. I recall Ed Greenwood (might have been Jeff Grubb) saying that the NPCs in the Gray Box were given levels high enough that they would "always" be beyond the capabilities of the PCs, and they PCs couldn't just go and slay them. Much like Gary Gygax originally intended spells higher than 7th level for NPCs, so they'd be a challenge and have abilities that the PCs didn't. But once they were out there, it became a sort of expectation. The novels tended to lean super heroic rather than just heroic, and now the expectation was that the PCs needed to be higher level. It also meant that the adventures and events they portrayed tended to be more on the epic side.

The original setting was presented as something more grounded in "reality." It was enhanced by Ed Greenwood's original Ecology of... series in Dragon magazine. There were in world reasons why dwarves and elves were rare, and incorporated the framework of the races presented in AD&D. And while many place the blame for power creep and such on Ed, I know that he was (is) under some contractual obligations, for example, Elminster must appear in every novel he writes. And I think the direction was set by TSR more than Ed during the 2e years. Just a guess though.

In addition, when it became the default/official setting, then every new idea got dumped into the Forgotten Realms. The Mongol invasion. The New World (Maztica), etc. This was further exacerbated with the shift to publishing supplements for players instead of DMs. Now each supplement has to have new player options. New races, new classes, etc. All of this has the effect of diluting and altering the setting itself. Yes, the Avatar crisis is probably the point where that started. And when I look back on it now, I like it much less simply because it ended up providing a precedent that gave them license to shake up the nature of the world each time a change in the rules came along.

The only reason I'm using the current 5e timeline is because they've done a lot (not enough) to pull back towards the original Realms. I still want to take advantage of it being a living campaign, although I'm not as closely tied to it now, dumping a lot of things that I just don't want in my campaign. As time goes on it will probably be less and less important.

--

As for the OP, I think a portion of it is perception. That is, the haters are more vocal than non-haters. Even the folks that love it, like me, are often quite vocal about what we don't like about changes that have been made. The 4e changes are a perfect example - even those that loved the Realms had a lot to say about that.

Second, since it became the default/official setting, when you picked up D&D you also picked up the Realms, or at least a part of it. Not to get into edition wars, but probably the biggest issue I had with 4e is characterized by eladrin. They decided that what D&D was missing was it's own lore, that they needed to create their own. So they did. And they went a step farther and said that the new lore needed to carry across all campaigns. So the planar lore of the Realms? Gone. Gods? Some are still there, many are gone. Elves? Well, sort of, now for whatever reason, despite the lore describing tens of thousands of years of history of the elves in the Realms, they're all mysteriously wrong. Now there are eladrin. Which also meant that the eladrin that already existed weren't there anymore. This was even before the Spellplague (which personally I don't really care about, it could have been interesting) and Returned Abeir, which I despised. Combined with jumping the timeline ahead 100 years which pretty much killed any existing campaigns, but wasn't nearly enough to explain why the Realms was now like Neverwinter Nights where every race lives everywhere in harmony with each other, despite the fact that many now look ridiculously monstrous and have only been around for 100 years.

Suffice to say, I think the problem became one of stewardship. The feelings of Realms fans about the 4e changes is a large part of what shows up as Realms haters.

Although there are many calling for a 5e campaign setting, the reality is that most of the best stuff that's been published, starting as far back as 2e, came from the 1e supplements, and the Ed Greenwood supplements from 2e. Large portions of the text in the 3e and 5e materials come directly from the 1e materials and Ed's Volo's Guides. The rest of the material is hit or miss, depending on the author and tie-ins.

I disagree with the assessments of other settings. Greyhawk has always had a distinct personality, just as Dragonlance, Ravenloft, and Dark Sun, for example. What makes them interesting is that they are unique and have their own feel. Since they haven't received as much attention from TSR or WotC, they remain undiluted in their nature. Mystara suffers a lot of the same issues the Realms does - as the official setting of the BECMI series, there was a need for more material. And the quality varies quite a bit.

This is where the 5e publishing approach is likely to help immensely. Instead of being in a rush to produce more material, the quality of such material should be higher. Unfortunately, that's not always the case. Volo's Guide to Monsters is a great product in terms of concept and design. Unfortunately, once again it's placed squarely within Realmslore, but they've totally ignored prior lore on the monsters and races presented. In addition, since the Realms is once again the default setting (despite WotC denying it), they're dumping everything in the realms whether it belongs there or not.

Anyway, I think there are a lot of people (probably the majority) who just don't care. They buy the APs, play them, and move on. The setting itself, or the setting integrity isn't something they care about. And they don't have much, if anything, to say about it at all.

I think the next largest group is probably those that love the Realms, but can't stand some or much of what TSR and WotC have done with it. This is a varied group, with all sorts of cutoff threshold. This is a very vocal group.

Then there are people who just hate it. Not as big a group, and not as vocal as the Realms Love/Hate group, but always willing to pipe in with a one-liner about what they dislike (Drizzt. Elminster. Etc.).

I think the smallest group is the one that loves everything about the Realms. Everything that has been published. I still incorporate probably about 80%+ into the lore of my campaign, even the stuff I don't like. Because stuff happens in the world that we don't like. But that doesn't mean I like it, and I will voice my displeasure (putting me in group 2).

 

[Ilbranteloth]

Sorry, but, where did I ever say I have to use the Realms? I think you might be ascribing things to me that I haven't said. But, that being said, I realize I'm not getting my point across very well, so, take it as read that I mean "Hey, I find the FR setting hard to get into, please sell me on its better aspects".

What positive things have been mentioned in this thread? I keep asking for positive things and the only answer I get is, "You don't have to use the material". Then again, this is a pretty fast moving thread, so maybe I missed something. So, please, show me what I missed.

LOL. Ok, fair enough. I probably deserved that. Thing is, I do recognize that this is a very popular setting. It's got a longevity that blows virtually any other setting for any game really, right out of the water. There's what, 35 years of material there? More? Obviously there's something to this setting that people like. It wouldn't be the premier setting for D&D if there wasn't.

So, again, sell it to me. Tell me why the Realms is this fantastic setting that doesn't reference the mountain of material. Like I've said more than a few times; I don't hate the Realms. I think there's lots of cool stuff there. Hell Sturgeon's Law says that there must be some real gems there. But, as far as I can see, the Realms seems to be the setting that people like to read about, more than actually play. And, well, that doesn't appeal to me.

OK, I'll try to sell you. Although the arguments can work for some other settings as well.

To start, I think that the Gray Box combined with Ed Greenwood Presents Elminster's Forgotten Realms and the 2e Volo's guides are what make the Realms for me. Nearly everything Ed wrote as a supplement was great.

So what drew me to the Realms was it's depth. Especially back in 1987. Ed's approach, which was highlighted by articles like the Ecology of.. series, took immersion in a campaign world much farther than anything that had come before. This is also reflected in the sheer number of stories and such in the background. The secret organizations, the history, the lore around a lost spellbook, rather than just "here's a few new spells." The Volo's Guides took this to a new level.

Despite the quality variation and the decisions that TSR and WotC have made over the years, the sheer amount of material is a huge benefit. Especially if your players have access to some of it and read it on their own. Immersion is one of the more challenging things in an RPG. Having a common knowledge of the world helps with that immensely. In my Realms, anything that's published is part of the campaign, although the accuracy varies. Heard rumors of a new race of dragon people in the east? Yeah, the reality is that didn't happen in my world, and that's just tall tales. But the HotDQ/RoT story - that's probably 80% true. And that's lore that can come into play to add color to what's at the table.

Most of the Greenwood penned Realms is not just earth reskinned (like Mystara and a lot of the non-Greenwood penned Realms). It's a unique place with its own history and stories, peoples, and places. He can certainly rewrite such source material (the bedine of Anauroch for example), although I suspect that approach was not a decision he made.

It is a setting that you can read about, and as a DM (and somebody who likes to read about it), that provides a lot of material to spark my ideas. And really I think that's its biggest strength. You don't have to read all of it. Your players can read different parts of it than you do. One of my players was a minor noble from Waterdeep. I loaned her a copy of Volo's Guide to Waterdeep. She loved it. And since I haven't read it in a while, and certainly didn't have it memorized, it made her (and her character) the expert on Waterdeep. She picked out her favorite taverns, places to shop, she "knew" people. And when she referenced them, I had a reference to go back to in terms of lore (along with other published resources).

The reality is, that a significant portion of the text of the 3e FRCS, and even SCAG and other 5e materials are copy/pasted right out the the 1e products and/or Volo's Guides. While it seems like there are mountains of material, 60%+, perhaps as much as 80%+, has been published multiple times. That's one of the things that WotC references now when they've said that they probably won't release a new CS. The material is already there to be found.

Another aspect that I really like is that it's a living campaign. The fact that story material is released on a regular basis provides continuous background, sort of ongoing news of the world. It makes the world seem larger than it otherwise would. If you choose (like me) not to actually run these story-lines, the epic nature of many of them becomes a strength. Obviously that's not what really happened, it's just the nature of a bard's tale. Something might have happened, but it wasn't quite like that!

 

[Ilbranteloth]

I recognize that it's not my place to sell you on the Realms, since I make it a point to veto any play in the Realms. But I suppose that's also where we have a shared problem. It's difficult for us to see the particular appeal of the setting. For us, it fails the fundamental question of the test: "So what?" Ignoring the settings identified as "niche," it's not as if we are somehow lacking generic settings: Greyhawk, Mystara, and Dragonlance. Most homebrews, despite the proud protestors pretending otherwise, would fall into generic fantasy as well.

That appears to be part of the problem. The appeal of the setting has likely shifted from its original focus and appeal of the original box. It's no longer only that it's a generic setting. There is tradition and nostalgia there. It's that it's a generic setting with a tremendous amount of accumulated lore, fiction, and media behind it. There is appeal in the mountain of material. But for us, that is also a self-defeating quality to the Realms that turns us off from it. We don't want all that detail that leaves barely anything, not even the windows, to the imagination! Forgotten Realms, for me at least, has become the homebrewer that we warn others not to become in homebrewing advice threads: "it's not healthy to detail everything" or "you may put in a lot of work and details into your setting, but players will likely not get much of it, so it's best to expend your efforts elsewhere." If I want a richly flavorful setting, I'm likely to look towards those niche settings. If I want a generic setting, particularly as a sandbox or open world, it seems that either a generic homebrew setting, Nentir Vale, or Greyhawk would be more useful for my purposes.

-------------------------------

Another fun analogy: I was discussing the Realms with another D&D gaming friend of mine, as I wanted to compare experiences. Though he voiced some admiration at the convenience of the Realms as a generic setting, he also voiced a simultaneous distaste of the Realms due to its NPCs (and its genericness). But he also offered an analogy that I found illustrative and amusing. He said, albeit not verbatim, "You know those parties that you would potentially want to go to, but don't because you don't want to run into those people that you absolutely can't stomach? You may never even see those people, but there is still the chance that you will and that they are in the same building with you? That's the Realms for me."

However, we have our differences in that he potentially would want to play in the Realms, whereas I do not. For a setting whose fanbase beams in pride at the sheer amount of information is available, I can't say that I'm impressed with its world-building. For all the lore that it supposedly has, this is the world that we have? Meh.

So one of the objections I see about the Realms is that there is too much material. The reality is, much of that material is simply reprinted and reformatted. The City of Splendors box set didn't actually add much new lore about Waterdeep that wasn't in Waterdeep and the North. It added some nice maps, and an adventure book and such, but the majority of the lore was just reprinted. Volo's Guide to Waterdeep added a bunch of new lore. The 3e book City of Splendors: Waterdeep was the same. In terms of actual information about Waterdeep, most of it comes from Waterdeep and the North and Volo's Guide. So there isn't as much lore as you might think (although there's a lot more than many other settings).

Despite the amount that is published, a great amount remains free for the DM to flesh out an populate on their own.

In addition, since it is published, the players can have access to it, so that lore can add richness and depth to your world that can't be done in a homebrew campaign. I don't have the time to prepare that much material.

I disagree with the "it's not healthy to detail everything" approach. My campaigns are, for me as a DM, largely improvised. I don't write the story, the players do through their characters. And I don't know what they are going to do. But I need building blocks to improvise with. The Realms lore is exactly the type of stuff I work well with. My brain needs history and context. The Realms provide that (and my own preparations), but none of it is "live" until it's integrated into the campaign itself. So the actual implementation might be very different from what was planned, or what's in the books, but it has a relationship to it, and the players can connect to that outside of the campaign. My imagination is far more interesting with lots of seeds than a blank slate. And the world is much more consistent with the framework provided by the setting.

My time and imagination have limits. Instead of walking into just another tavern, there's a ready made tavern that's unique, which helps make it memorable as well. So when we're referencing back to something 6 months or a year from now, everybody knows what we're talking about. And instead of designing another tavern, I can focus on other aspects to design that are more productive to the campaign.

The players can also be connected to the world and the campaign between game sessions. This is a very powerful way to increase immersion in the game.

Its world-building does suffer. I've mentioned it before, start with the Gray Box, the 2e Volo's Guides, and Ed Greenwood Presents Elminster's Forgotten Realms for the most consistent world view. The original supplements (Waterdeep and the North, etc.) are mostly solid as well, if you're interested in addressing a specific region. With so many supplements (many just dumped into the Realms) by so many authors, there is a lot of substandard material. One of my primary complaints with TSR/WotC is that they have been poor stewards of the setting.

I wouldn't consider it a generic fantasy setting, nor the other settings you've mentioned. Or I guess if that's your definition of a generic fantasy setting, what isn't a generic fantasy setting? The design of the world (at least the way Ed designed it) is pretty unique to other settings. What really makes the setting is the behind the scenes stuff - the secret societies, plots, schemes, and such. The politics of the setting as originally designed is local, with many levels. As opposed to something like Greyhawk that tends to focus on the politics between rulers and governments, with the background of impending or perpetual war. Of course, as a war buff and wargamer, this isn't unexpected.

So in the Realms you feel like you can be much more involved with the world and setting itself, rather than the setting being more of a backdrop like Greyhawk. Dragonlance, of course, is more of the epic approach, with the characters involved in epoch ending events, much like the ages of Middle-Earth.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

Well, I find it an incoherent mess. But I've disliked it for a long time, even before the 4e/5e changes. I just don't like the stuff on it, super NPCs running around, the factions, the excessive focus on a single peninsula, the "everybody picks a god", the gods walking the earth, how it is a thinly refluffed version of the real world, along with extremely simplistic analogues of real world cultures, and most of all the wall, that evil wall.

Interesting collection of (mis)perceptions, most of which I would disagree with...

The super NPCs come in two flavors. In the original Gray Box, the NPCs were designed to be a higher level than any of the PCs intentionally. Not to be super powered, but because villains needed to be a challenge, and the good guys too high to be challenged. This was sort of SOP for D&D, and the approach goes back to the beginning such as where spells of higher than 7th level were originally for NPCs, not PCs. There were a lot of NPC classes for similar reasons, and they were almost always more powerful than PC classes.

The novel (and later incorporated into the supplements) super NPCs arose (I think) due to the popularity of Drizzt. Elminster was required (by contract) to appear in every book by Greenwood. So he'd have him show up for 10 minutes to save the heroes for a moment. I think that the novels is what caused the rise of the super NPC, but they really didn't need to have any part in the campaigns themselves.

The factions to me is one of the strongest points, and what makes the Realms different from other settings. Like the criminal organizations like the Mafia (and it's various regional differences), Yakuza, and such, they provide all sorts of underlying plot possibilities which were dramatically different from the dungeon crawl approach of the time, or the epic story approach of Dragonlance.

Excessive focus on a single peninsula? Do you mean the Sword Coast of 5e? Most Realms fans seem to be complaining about that too, but that's a new development. Nearly all of Faerun has been covered in depth, with a few specific regions (Sword Coast, Waterdeep, the North (and the far North due to Drizzt), Cormyr, the Moonsea and the Dalelands all receiving extensive coverage. You have lots of options with those alone, and all with their own feel and environment.

Everybody picks a god? That's a D&D thing, not a Realms thing. The Realms is more about a true polytheism, other than Clerics, and possibly some of the other (formerly) divine classes like paladins.

The gods walking the earth was a design decision to usher in the changes for 2e, which unfortunately became a more permanent part of the Realms (although still a small one, usually). The fact that they could manifest is a Realms thing, and altered the way religion works in relation to other settings.

Thinly fluffed revision of the real world/simplistic analogues of real world cultures, however, is an example of the poor stewardship of TSR. Greenwood's Realms was specifically not a refluffed real world (unlike Gygax's Greyhawk, whose own campaign used a map of earth with his own names). The Horde, Old Empires, Maztica, Al Qadim, etc. were all dumped into the Realms, most of which would have been other projects altogether. While they are officially part of the Realms, many Realms fans would consider them otherwise. Again this is the result of business decisions rather than setting design. And other than Old Empires, are usually given less than a footnote. The 4e changes have largely been disowned as well. Most of the core Realms bears little resemblance to locales or history of earth.

Wow, the wall is something that really amuses me. Apparently it really, really bothers a group of people. Whatever. I think it's a cool concept, but the reality is, I consider all of the extraplanar stuff about the gods to be a separate entity. To me, the what the churches and religions believe is different and separate from what is really happening in the planes. So to me the wall may be myth, another sort of hell, that sort of thing. But to hate an entire setting because of a fictional wall I find quite amusing.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

I'm told, by someone who read the book more closely than me, that the 3e book did make a number of changes, like Elves were no longer leaving like in Tolkien, and Dwarves started breeding properly so were no longer dying out. It advanced the timeline, only by a year or two, from 2e.

The "time of troubles" adventures were the biggest piece of 2e "story-driven adventures" crap that I've seen, a big reason I gave up playing a lot of D&D not long after 2e came out because adventures went from simple concise site-based dungeons or similar, to over-blown novels trying to be an adventure. In the "time of troubles" adventures, the PC's get to watch gods battle, led around by Elminster, from near Thay, to Waterdeep, with an NPC who is better than any PC and must accompany them because she turns into Mystra at the end of the 3rd adventure. And another NPC also turns emo mid-way through and by the end he's the new god of murder. Honestly, I read all three adventures again recently, and struggled to see where the actual "adventure" was, unless the players got bored and just randomly attacked NPCs or Gods, and even then of course the silly PC's can't win and yet they must be lead by the nose to see the scripted ending. So you see, that's one example of why some people don't like the FR. From what I figured out even in 1e days, that seems to be the Ed Greenwood style of DMing... (or if it's not, his real style doesn't come out in what he's got his name on).

That's definitely not Ed Greenwood's style of DMing. The Avatar series adventures were horrible, just like most other epic plot driven adventure that's ever been released.

Ed Greenwood presents Elminster's Forgotten Realms probably points to the direction that Ed's campaigns are like more than anything else. Note, I've never played in his campaign. But he, and others in his campaign, have spent lots of time chatting with fans. The way I see his Realms is what I would call a living sandbox. He provides an enormous amount of background, setting details, rumors and schemes going on in the background. The players decide what they want to engage in and go from there.

The setting itself has the feel of being developed from the inside out, over time. So the Dalelands started as a simple village (Shadowdale) and as it was explored from there, more was fleshed out. Don't know if that's true, but it's the sense I get. So the Dalelands and Elven Court have a specific feel and design. The Moonsea (particularly the Zhentarim) is a separate area. Cormyr was designed differently, and Waterdeep a far away major city.

Some of the perception is due to contractual reasons. For example, Eliminster is required to appear in any novel he writes. That's part of the original TSR contract (which is still in force).

I agree that the adventures I've seen tend to be a bit lackluster.

 

[hastur_nz]

I must say, Ed Greenwood presents Elminster's Forgotten Realms is one book I'd like to browse, but have never seen.

However, my great fear is that, like too many other FR books, adventures, etc, the fact that Elminster features, is an immediate turn-off; I just can't stomach Galdalf er I mean Elminster turning up and leading the players by the nose, any more than I can Elminster or Volo or anyone else's "in character" descriptions of things... I just want some simple background info, plot hooks, etc, so I can be inspired to flesh them out. I sure don't want Elminster or Volo or Drizzt or any other super-over-used DM-NPC type in my games (as a player or DM). Hence the "Hate"