Why the hatred towards FRCS?

Thanee · Jan 26, 2002

People hate FR, because they hate small details of the campaign setting as given in the books.

It's always the same: Hatred of detail is simply projected on the whole thing.

Bye
Thanee

Tsyr · Jan 26, 2002

Elmunchster is not what I would call a "small detail".

Da Man · Jan 26, 2002

I have DM'd in the Realms for a very long time. I even played a few short adventures there. Finally, as per my Sig, I have helped to create an online gaming world that uses the Realms as its Setting.

BUT, as per the second or third post in this thread, WotC has taken the stance that the Realms will be a Fantasy Literature setting. There is apparently a substantial profit to be found in this niche and the Realms are doing it for them.

Unfortunately, the side-effect is that the Realms are too detailed. This is driven further home by the Historians that run rampant in all FR Forums and Lists. They will make the casual observer believe that DM's and Player's WANT this kind of detail in a Fantasy Setting. The truth is that Literature Enthusiasts (or, as I call them, Historians of the Realms) are the ones that primarily want this type of stuff.

Fortunately, the current business regime has realized some of the failures of their past and started work on more generic gaming info. I believe they will find that the well-written, generic gaming product (that fits into any world) will prove to be much more in demand then the the FR Specific stuff. In addition, new DM's will not be so intimidated to join the FR Fold, because only a couple of books will be needed to get up to speed.

Alas, the remnants of the old regime still exist and they will no doubt infect some of the others with their belief's. So, I harbor little hope that this will remain true for long=(

Jones

Axiomatic Unicorn · Jan 26, 2002

kenjib said:
What I liked about the first release was that, unlike Greyhawk, it was filled with wild and empty spaces. Well, they are all just about filled up now...

That is a very good point.

But to me that is why I don't actually play in the Realms AND why I buy almost everything that comes out regarding the realms.

It is crammed full of details down to the smallest hamlet in many cases. It gives me everything I need for my own world. Anything I want to design myself I can and anything I need quickly I just steal from FR.

Toss away the super NPCs, then toss the hisroy that is tied to them, then toss the gross geography that is tied to the history.
You are left with a great world-builders tool kit.

MaoF is the best book I have bought yet, IMO.
Sure, there are some uber spells and such. But I can tweak or ignore them and still have more crunchy bits than I will ever use.

Tsyr · Jan 26, 2002

Axiomatic Unicorn said:
That is a very good point.

But to me that is why I don't actually play in the Realms AND why I buy almost everything that comes out regarding the realms.

It is crammed full of details down to the smallest hamlet in many cases. It gives me everything I need for my own world. Anything I want to design myself I can and anything I need quickly I just steal from FR.

Toss away the super NPCs, then toss the hisroy that is tied to them, then toss the gross geography that is tied to the history.
You are left with a great world-builders tool kit.

MaoF is the best book I have bought yet, IMO.
Sure, there are some uber spells and such. But I can tweak or ignore them and still have more crunchy bits than I will ever use.

This is a very good point, IMHO... some of the realms products have individualy been quite good... Some of which you will even find on my home campagin world. It's just that trying to tie them together... doesn't work as well.

I have Skullport, for example. I use a lot of what was in both MaoF and the FRCS as far as rules. I use "cities of mystery" a lot. (It really has NOTHING to do with FR, though, despite name)... stuff like that is good.

BiggusGeekus · Jan 26, 2002

There have been a lot of good points here so I won't rehash them all. But for me my distaste for FR (not hatred) primarily lies in the plethora of powerful NPCs who seem to do nothing with their time (who knows? Maybe they're on the internet). Also I'm not a fan of the core FR ruleset which is very easy to powergame (e.g. sun elf wizard/archamages with maximum INT that cast spells that are all but unresistable).

To the people who say "Hey, I solve the FR problems by modifing it." I don't fully understand. Why buy a product that you aren't going to fully use when there are other d20 fantasy products out that don't have those problems?

Axiomatic Unicorn · Jan 26, 2002

Tsyr said:
This is a very good point, IMHO... some of the realms products have individualy been quite good... Some of which you will even find on my home campagin world. It's just that trying to tie them together... doesn't work as well.

I have Skullport, for example. I use a lot of what was in both MaoF and the FRCS as far as rules. I use "cities of mystery" a lot. (It really has NOTHING to do with FR, though, despite name)... stuff like that is good.

Yeah. I guess the point is that you can think that FR is not at all a great campaign world to actually play in, but still be very glad that it exists as a medium for ideas.

So, based on that, I don't complain about others that do enjoy it. If they are having fun and their setting provides tools to me, everyone should be happy.

Cullain · Jan 26, 2002

BiggusGeekus said:
To the people who say "Hey, I solve the FR problems by modifing it." I don't fully understand. Why buy a product that you aren't going to fully use when there are other d20 fantasy products out that don't have those problems?

To be fair, I don't think there are any d20 books out there that I'd use without modifying. I like Scarred Lands, et. al., but I don't think I've seen a world that's made me say "okay, this is exactly what I want, I'm not changing a thing about it"

YMMV

Cullain

Aryoche · Jan 26, 2002

BiggusGeekus said:
To the people who say "Hey, I solve the FR problems by modifing it." I don't fully understand. Why buy a product that you aren't going to fully use when there are other d20 fantasy products out that don't have those problems? [/B]

Maybe it's me, but I tend to come at things from a different angle.

I happen to -like- the Realms *because* of the familiarity it has, and the level of detail. It makes my limited preperation times a whole lot easier, since a lot of the "fleshing out" is already provided. If I like it, great. If I don't, I can modify, change, or ignore it.

The game isn't about the focus of all these "high level NPC's sitting around doing nothing", it's about the player characters, and the stories they tell in conjunction with their DM.

But to answer the question posed above, I'm not quite sure what you mean by "fully use". With the level of detail presented, a DM can pick a location, and have enough of the area fleshed out to put their own spin on it. That's pretty much what I do. The players may know all about the world, but do their characters? If a character grew up in the area of Daggerford, are they really going to know the details of Thay?

Just my two copper...

drothgery · Jan 26, 2002

Cullain said:
To the people who say "Hey, I solve the FR problems by modifing it." I don't fully understand. Why buy a product that you aren't going to fully use when there are other d20 fantasy products out that don't have those problems?

Well, there aren't any (though d20 WoT with some errata and a few tweaks of the weave selection and PrCs would come very close, for me). But I think that those of us who tweak FR stuff buy FR stuff because it's one of the best-produced settings out there, if not the best.