I never played Forgotten Realms, and have no interest in doing so, even with the 4th edition revamp of it.
First was the issue of there being too many high level NPC's floating around, more suited to solving the problems that arise than Joe Fighter and his motley band. Yes, the powerful people in the Realms are being observed and their actions may well have political implications that constrain their ability to act freely. That's a standard plot device for why the more powerful NPC's in any game setting send lower level people on an adventure. It's fine to use that here and there, but justification of that sort shouldn't have to happen every time you send the PC's out to delve some dungeons. To me it doesn't matter what fraction of the theoretical population of the Realms is actually that powerful - the
Dramatis Personae list for FR is too big, and makes it feel too crowded to allow more heros to join the club.
I never read the novels. Any player who had would automatically know more than I did about the world, and thus take away my freedom to play things the way I want. It makes it hard to use those NPC's in any way that doesn't fit with how they are portrayed in the novels. Likewise adding a non FR module to my game would be more difficult. Perhaps I need a peninsula with 2 warring countries and a mountain pass between them for Burning Sky. Where does that fit into the Realms? Without players throwing a hissy fit that the map doesn't look that way? (Depends on your players, I will grant - mine wouldn't actually react that way).
I despise the drow and all that they stand for. They are blatantly sexist, and a completely unsustainable and unbelievable culture. They'd have murdered themselves all off long ago with the inter-house warring, as well as sacrificing of infants - not to mention all the adventurers that come along regularly killing every drow they find. It's okay to slay them all because they are *evil*. They violate all kinds of taboos, so that makes them unremittingly *evil* and therefore it's okay for the paladin to wade through a city of sentient beings in an orgy of bloodshed, because they are *evil*. They kill their own babies, they keep slaves, they delight in torture. May as well make them cannibals as well, just to hit that last unbreakable taboo and show everyone how *evil* they all are. As for the sexism, there's a great article about it
here..
Fine, so I hate drow. What does that have to do with Forgotten Realms? Quite a bit from my admittedly limited exposure to the setting. Drizz't is an important figure from that world, and a rallying point for downtrodden drow males everywhere. The Underdark and the Drow are pretty thoroughly woven into the campaign setting. Extricating them would be more work than simply making a new setting.
Finally, when I think of the Forgotten Realms, I think of the computer games I played that were set there. Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights. Fun games that I enjoyed, but I have no desire to run my paper & pencil game there. That world setting has too many firmly entrenched events and NPC's for me to feel comfortable changing things around. I have no desire to read through a bunch of novels to learn more about the realms - I have plenty of other stuff I'd rather read right now.
Essentially, why I choose to not play in Forgotten Realms comes down to the fact that it's easier for me to make my own world than to change around something with the detailed history, rigidly defined geography, and long list of prominent NPC's that encumber Forgotten Realms. For those who enjoyed the novels, the NPC's, and the geography, then I'm glad you can play in that world. For those of us with no current attachment to it, there's less to draw us into playing there. To each his own.
