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Why FR Is "Hated"
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<blockquote data-quote="Mercule" data-source="post: 7126126" data-attributes="member: 5100"><p>I'm with those who despise the Realms. I'd be more than happy to have a genie make the whole mess disappear from existence (yes, that sorta contradicts my above post -- deal with it).</p><p></p><p>Really, it's not the Realms, themselves, that I hate. It's their popularity/prominence.</p><p></p><p>I owned the gray box. I didn't love it and found it kinda cheesy/lame. But.... It's D&D and even teenage me didn't expect Shakespeare out of a D&D setting. It really just wasn't something I wanted to use, as a DM, but I played in a FR campaign for about a year. Whatever.</p><p></p><p>So, what changed it from "indifferent" to "hate"?</p><p></p><p>1) It's freaking everywhere. I just can't get away from it. Just like the Crossfit guy, I'm happy he's getting in shape, but be willing to discuss something else. I mean, we can't even have a Ravenloft adventure without putting Realms content into it*.</p><p></p><p>1a) Even before the Realms were the only published setting, it was the most prominent setting. It was really, really heavily promoted from the beginning**. It was prominent enough in 2E that making Greyhawk the "default setting" in 3E was a big deal. Even then, that was just lip service where the Realms still had way more content published and the adventures barely made reference to Greyhawk, if at all.</p><p></p><p>2) Drizzt. Not Drizzt, specifically, but the high portion of Mary Sue and/or "goofy" NPCs. By "goofy", I just mean NPCs I don't like. I've never liked Drizzt, but his trajectory from "annoying" to "die-die-die" is pretty much about over-exposure. I don't like the Harpers or, actually, the global nature of any of the Five Factions. I don't like Elminster. I don't like the personalities of the active gods. I actually can't think of any NPCs that I don't dislike -- not that I know that many.</p><p></p><p>3) Someone phrased it as "Encyclopedia Britannica". There's just too much stuff for me to "master" the setting. I know I don't have to master it to use it, but I've been in games using settings with large back stories (Star Wars, Realms, etc.) and seen players who knew more about the setting than the DM. Even if the player isn't acting like an ass, it can still cause issues when the player makes assumptions, innocently, about the setting and the DM hasn't reviewed that portion of the source. In many (most?) cases, someone who is well versed on a topic doesn't separate out the sources for their knowledge, they just have a bucket of knowledge and no way to even know where the lines are for what is and isn't "campaign canon". I've read several of the older novels (I really tried to like it) and can safely say that there's no way I'm reading more. I'm also not slogging through all the various source books, either. So, me running a Realms game is just setting myself up for pain***, should I ever have a player who cared enough for the choice to matter (which I think I do, but he's been very accepting of the fires of hell to which I've exiled his hopes).</p><p></p><p>4) The Realms steals everything and makes it more a part of the Realms than wherever it came from. Drow and Lolth started in Greyhawk, but they've somehow become part of the Realms identity such that, if D&D and the Realms ever divorced, most folk would probably expect the Realms to take the drow with it. Kara Tur was just the name of the implied setting in the 1E <u>Oriental Adventures</u> book, but it's now the name of the OA-type area of the Realms. While the plasticity of the Realms is pretty amazing, it's something of a cancer where it would appear that the Realms is not just using, but consuming, all the D&D IP. I probably hate the Realms most because it is threatening to become synonymous with D&D in a way no other setting ever has: not Mystara in BECMI (a setting I don't like any better than the Realms, but have no ill will towards) nor Greyhawk in AD&D.</p><p></p><p>* Yes, I understand that was, at least in part, to support AL play. Well, CoS wasn't an AL-specific adventure and wasn't labeled as an AL product. There are actual AL products and free AL material. The right way to handle the AL needs of CoS would have been to put out a web supplement with the AL hooks in it. Don't want it in the AL bucket? Put out a UA supplement. It would be great if it had some ideas for other settings, but not critical, in this context.</p><p></p><p>** The timing is just right that, right or wrong, it also has the appearance of TSR using the Realms to try to replace/scrub Greyhawk and other Gygax flavor from D&D, following his ouster.</p><p></p><p>*** I briefly toyed with getting the SCAG and declaring that we were going to use the Realms, but that <u>only</u> the information in the SCAG was canon and all other sources were to be explicitly ignored. If there was ever a need to know what was at an otherwise unmarked spot on the map, I'd make it up without <u>any</u> research. Ditto for anything outside the bounds of the SCAG -- not sure whether Thay was on the SCAG map or not, but it wouldn't exist if that map didn't show it and one shouldn't make any assumptions about it that weren't called out (if shown, but no mention of Red Wizards were made, I might turn it into a society run by Paladins, just because). Ultimately, I decided not to because it wouldn't actually fulfill anyone's needs other than a bit of sadism on my part.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Mercule, post: 7126126, member: 5100"] I'm with those who despise the Realms. I'd be more than happy to have a genie make the whole mess disappear from existence (yes, that sorta contradicts my above post -- deal with it). Really, it's not the Realms, themselves, that I hate. It's their popularity/prominence. I owned the gray box. I didn't love it and found it kinda cheesy/lame. But.... It's D&D and even teenage me didn't expect Shakespeare out of a D&D setting. It really just wasn't something I wanted to use, as a DM, but I played in a FR campaign for about a year. Whatever. So, what changed it from "indifferent" to "hate"? 1) It's freaking everywhere. I just can't get away from it. Just like the Crossfit guy, I'm happy he's getting in shape, but be willing to discuss something else. I mean, we can't even have a Ravenloft adventure without putting Realms content into it*. 1a) Even before the Realms were the only published setting, it was the most prominent setting. It was really, really heavily promoted from the beginning**. It was prominent enough in 2E that making Greyhawk the "default setting" in 3E was a big deal. Even then, that was just lip service where the Realms still had way more content published and the adventures barely made reference to Greyhawk, if at all. 2) Drizzt. Not Drizzt, specifically, but the high portion of Mary Sue and/or "goofy" NPCs. By "goofy", I just mean NPCs I don't like. I've never liked Drizzt, but his trajectory from "annoying" to "die-die-die" is pretty much about over-exposure. I don't like the Harpers or, actually, the global nature of any of the Five Factions. I don't like Elminster. I don't like the personalities of the active gods. I actually can't think of any NPCs that I don't dislike -- not that I know that many. 3) Someone phrased it as "Encyclopedia Britannica". There's just too much stuff for me to "master" the setting. I know I don't have to master it to use it, but I've been in games using settings with large back stories (Star Wars, Realms, etc.) and seen players who knew more about the setting than the DM. Even if the player isn't acting like an ass, it can still cause issues when the player makes assumptions, innocently, about the setting and the DM hasn't reviewed that portion of the source. In many (most?) cases, someone who is well versed on a topic doesn't separate out the sources for their knowledge, they just have a bucket of knowledge and no way to even know where the lines are for what is and isn't "campaign canon". I've read several of the older novels (I really tried to like it) and can safely say that there's no way I'm reading more. I'm also not slogging through all the various source books, either. So, me running a Realms game is just setting myself up for pain***, should I ever have a player who cared enough for the choice to matter (which I think I do, but he's been very accepting of the fires of hell to which I've exiled his hopes). 4) The Realms steals everything and makes it more a part of the Realms than wherever it came from. Drow and Lolth started in Greyhawk, but they've somehow become part of the Realms identity such that, if D&D and the Realms ever divorced, most folk would probably expect the Realms to take the drow with it. Kara Tur was just the name of the implied setting in the 1E [U]Oriental Adventures[/U] book, but it's now the name of the OA-type area of the Realms. While the plasticity of the Realms is pretty amazing, it's something of a cancer where it would appear that the Realms is not just using, but consuming, all the D&D IP. I probably hate the Realms most because it is threatening to become synonymous with D&D in a way no other setting ever has: not Mystara in BECMI (a setting I don't like any better than the Realms, but have no ill will towards) nor Greyhawk in AD&D. * Yes, I understand that was, at least in part, to support AL play. Well, CoS wasn't an AL-specific adventure and wasn't labeled as an AL product. There are actual AL products and free AL material. The right way to handle the AL needs of CoS would have been to put out a web supplement with the AL hooks in it. Don't want it in the AL bucket? Put out a UA supplement. It would be great if it had some ideas for other settings, but not critical, in this context. ** The timing is just right that, right or wrong, it also has the appearance of TSR using the Realms to try to replace/scrub Greyhawk and other Gygax flavor from D&D, following his ouster. *** I briefly toyed with getting the SCAG and declaring that we were going to use the Realms, but that [U]only[/U] the information in the SCAG was canon and all other sources were to be explicitly ignored. If there was ever a need to know what was at an otherwise unmarked spot on the map, I'd make it up without [U]any[/U] research. Ditto for anything outside the bounds of the SCAG -- not sure whether Thay was on the SCAG map or not, but it wouldn't exist if that map didn't show it and one shouldn't make any assumptions about it that weren't called out (if shown, but no mention of Red Wizards were made, I might turn it into a society run by Paladins, just because). Ultimately, I decided not to because it wouldn't actually fulfill anyone's needs other than a bit of sadism on my part. [/QUOTE]
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