Why does it suck so much? I hate this setting but I can't quite figure out what makes it so bad. Is it that it's just generic and boring?
It's because of the Nordic pantheon. Tyr should stay dead and forgotten, Bahamut is cooler anyway.
>>94755732If it's anything like D&D, it sucks because it was created by throwing a bunch of bullshit together without any consideration for how to make them fit together.
>>94755732It's a milquetoast Tolkien-clone fantasy that does nothing new, fun, or interesting with the genre. >>94756061Fuck off nogames
>>94755732Truth is, it's a mediocre setting. It's not offensively bad like Exandria, it's just bland.Oh and all the best stuff is outside the Sword Coast. I fucking love the Vilhon Reach.
>>94755732>why does it suckWell thats a very complicated question with a very simple answer. It sucks because of all the things they put in, and all the things they left out
>>94756278>Fuck off nogamesOh, so Forgotten Realms actually accounts for all of D&D's magical presence through its monsters and materials, and is a world without non-magical people?
Which is better?>mystara>FR>Greyhawk
>>94755732The Dalelands and its neighbors are the best-playing portion of the realms.You probably hate 5e forgetting everything but the Sword Coast, and homogenizing everything into Fantasy Seattle as opposed to Greenwood's Arthurian myth-meets-Ren Faire-meets-hippie free love maaan.
>>94755732This isn't a shot at you. It sucks because you are a younger player than when it first came out. Before FR there was Greyhawk. Greyhawk was wonderful when it was released but it didn't age well. It was a tolkien rip off (pretty much most fantasy games are). FR came out and it was different from Greyhawk. TSR also invested a significant amount of resources to develop it. It like Greyhawk however has not aged well.
>>94755746Don't hate on Tyr. He is a cool guy.>>94756537Mystara >>> Greyhawk >>>>>>>>>>> FRMystara is a great setting, and there was also some dope video games made about it.
>>94756598Part of it's also that, when writing a new setting after seeing how previous ones have developed and aged, a writer benefits hugely from being able to predict what setting elements they might need to account for. When Eberron was being written, Keith could look at decades of game history to figure out what a campaign might reasonably entail, and he had a bunch of material to work with from all the products released for Greyhawk, Faerûn, and all the rest. That meant he could work in things that were later additions to those worlds right from the get-go, or else make a conscious choice to exclude certain things.
>>94756598The premise of "all our myths are real, but we got them wrong" is just stupid on the face of it.
>>94756278>It's a milquetoast Tolkien-clone fantasy that does nothing new, fun, or interesting with the genreFaerun is far from my favorite setting but this just isnt true at all theres plenty of cool shit but wotc stopped writing about most of it to constantly focus on the sword coast
>>94756383Part of why you say it's bland is because it's so old and well-established. It did some interesting stuff when first established. Some of the gods like Loviatar and Azuth were very original at the time, Zhentil Keep was pretty original at the time, and at first the Harper's felt cool instead of weird and lame.But now everything it did by definition no longer feels original, so it's all boring - even the stuff that was originally cool.
>>94755732>Is it that it's just generic and boring?Something that doesn't help the feeling of it being generic is that so many settings took inspiration from it, same as Forgotten Realms did in the first place, but what really does it for me is that the writing hyperfocuses on just one corner of the world of Toril itself. I personally think it'd be a lot cooler if there was plenty more recent lore released about the rest of the regions besides Faerûn, but some of it also suffers from lore that was a product of its time, and there's no way Warlocks of the Beach is touching any of it without butchering the lore and causing both outrage in oldheads and curiosity from newfriends who will then read lore the writers would rather leave unread, so the setting is locked in this status quo of 'if we don't mention the rest of Toril, we can pretend it doesn't exist.'When you compare it to other settings, they either haven't done the leap to reveal a truly larger world and expand what they already have, or they have a fully fleshed out world with stories told from a much wider point of view, instead of having a setting where going to the plane of hell as a mortal has heaps of more lore and campaign modules than the sub-continent right next door, which we know exists.The Forgotten Realms is a public pool complex with several pools, but your only option get into the overcrowded made-for-everyone not-quite-shallow not-quite-deep pool that might not interest you or might have folks that disturb your stay in it, because the other pools within eyeshot haven't had their waters changed since before you were born, and the folks running the pool would rather have you ignore them, until they have to talk about how big their public pool complex is.
>>94756405>Oh, so Forgotten Realms actually accounts for all of D&DForgotten Realms predates D&D retard.It's gotten worse under WotC, but it was a thing even before TSR got involved.
>>94755732It just feels like a mess to me. Every new edition of DND completely fucks up the realms in some stupid way. Playing on a world that has some cataclysmic meta event every few decades just doesn't feel like my characters will be safe, especially arcane casters, since Mystra is so prone to getting killed. I prefer a world where the laws of reality are a little more stable.
>>94755732IMO is because of a combination of factors:1) wants to be the end of all d&d settings (by greenwood words, if something exist in d&d it also exist somewhere in the forgotten realms) without the inherent weirdness a blatant gonzo setting like that would entice. Mystara is basically the same concept but leagues more fun.2) it's designed for being the equivalent of a "marvel"esque world with its own continuity while striving for remaining always in the same stasis (sort of early renassaince place with no firearms but almost there). The amounts of times the realms were essentially nuked and reversed to the status quo is ridiculous at this point.3) it's literally greenwood personal magical realms, and that would be sort-of fun in itself, but it's also THE d&d setting so all of the weird coomer stuff get pushed in the back for marketability sake.4) it's already filled with protagonists and top dogs everywhere with various works of media dedicated to them, leaving little space for the pc in actually emerging as powers of the setting. Every game ultimately feels like a personal fanfiction inside a theme park rather than expanding on a true open world.That said FR can actually work in favor of your game if you embrace greenwood flavor and selectively pick what exist and what events happened in your canon, i just think that, for the relative massive scale of the setting, hârn does what i would expect FR to be for me way better.
>>94756565>dalelandsCompletely overrun by Greenwood's self inserts, player characters, and Harpers.
>>94758146>it's already filled with protagonists and top dogs everywhere with various works of media dedicated to themYes that's it. That's exactly why I hate it. They totally overshadow the pcs and makes me feel like I am playing in someone else's backyard.
>>94755732>Anything below Ice Wind Dale and Luskan should be taken by the sea.https://youtu.be/NQnZsaTM6ws?si=Jq-onNR7xa6UNFxKFixed.
>>94755732Because soobversion has rotten your brain and you can't appreciate TRVE SOVL
>>94757932So what you're saying is, when it was first created, it actually accounted for its own magical presence through its monsters and materials, and was a world without non-magical people?
>>94760747it was a world without non-magical realm people. Remember that almost every town has a "festhall", which is just a whorehouse for constant massive orgies.
>>94755732It doesn't. I like it.
>>94755732>Why does it suckBecause WotC has gone out of their way to make every setting they own shit.>Generic and boringIronically, the greybox openly calls it a "generic" setting that anyone can have adventures in, because part of the point was that it allowed 1,001 adventurers to have 1,001 adventures because it had no "main plot" or "world ending threat" or anything of the sort, unlike some other big settings.Times have changed greatly since then.
>>94760960>No "world ending threat">Forgotten RealmsLmaoThanks for the hilarious trivia
>>94758146>2) it's designed for being the equivalent of a "marvel"esque world with its own continuity while striving for remaining always in the same stasis (sort of early renassaince place with no firearms but almost there). The amounts of times the realms were essentially nuked and reversed to the status quo is ridiculous at this pointThe fact that the Realms never get truly retconned shittifies it more than almost anything else.
>>94761140>You must take every sentence ever published as cannonIsn't a rule and never has been. Pick the era or supplement you like. Use it.Retconns a shit. Totally unnecessary.
>>94761170The way the 4e changes were dealt with was beyond cringe, with everything reversing through handwaving or marvel tier solutions without actually being retconned, leading to convoluted "yes this stupid crap DID happen years ago, but it was undone by this other thing".> Pick the era or supplement you like. Use it.No, I won't because I don't play in garbage setting. But this thread's topic is this garbage setting.
>>94761194>The way the 4e changes were dealt with was beyond cringeI've been playing Forgotten Realms since 1993. Can I tell you something? I have abso-fucking-lutely no idea what changes 4e introduced. It has never impacted me or my games or my players. I have two different campaign sets and about fourteen supplement boxes and books sitting on the shelf in my office. Whatever you're talking about is one of a hundred or so books released for forgotten realms. Read the other 99. Or just 1 of them.
>>94761194I checked outa curiosity. Per Wikipedia, there are 206 Forgotten Realms supplements to-date. You don't like a particular one that came out 12 to 16 years ago? Seems pretty nit-picky of a complaint.There's nothing in the world that you produce 207 books describing that are gonna be 100% bangers.
>>94761220>>94761250>The lore is great if you ignore the loreLmaoBut yeah even without the stupid 4e crap the setting still has Elminster and the Harpers so it's trash.
>>94761264I'm not saying Forgotten Realms is the greatest campaign world in history. But it's a far cry from the worst (which would be dragonlance)
>>94756405It's a D&D setting you illiterate retard.>>94757712>theres plenty of cool shit but wotc stopped writing about most of it to constantly focus on the sword coastThere really isn't. It's all generic bullshit, because FR is THE generic D&D setting. It's not cool like Eberron, it's not retarded edgy garbage like Dark Sun, it's not even the ACTUAL tolkein-clone with Dragonlance.
>>94761333>It's a D&D setting you illiterate retard.All right, so >>94756061 was correct then.
>>94761471>Doesn't know core basics like what Forgotten Realms is>Well ackshually let me tell you about D&DYeah buddy you sound like a super informed authority on the topic. Dipshit.
>>94761679So what you're saying is, when it was first created, it actually accounts for its own magical presence through its monsters and materials, and is a world without non-magical people?
>>94761688No. What I said is that you're a dipshit for trying to offer your input on a topic you're totally and utterly ignorant of.
>>94761333i mean evermeet is straight up valinor but aside from that the city of thay, sea of stars , chult with the dinosaurs, plenty of netherese ruins, drow bullshit all have great story potential its just most of it hasnt been used since 3rd edition and 4e scared wotc off being invested in any setting heavily
>>94761688>accounts for its own magical presenceThose words don't mean anything.
>>94761267Yeah I didn't say it was the worst, just that it sucks.
Meh. I like BG 1 and I think Waterdeep is a cool setting. Endlessly bitching about a thing you don't like is kind of pathetic.
Because all the interesting parts are ignored or outright removed for no good reason.
>>94756383>offensively bad like ExandriaHow is Exandria bad?
>>94755732there's no mystery. You can't go five feet without encountering a statue or a spooky cave or a blade of grass that has its own wiki articlethat said the setting does have some cool stuff; Al-Qadim is good shit
My favorite part of the Realms is Jhaamdath. I will never be able to run a game set in it because it was destroyed long ago.Also because Psionics are no longer a thing.
>>94761990Faerun is actually stupidly huge. Even though it's supposed to be roughly analogous to Europe, it's much larger (roughly twice as big), and exists on a giant planet that likely has a core made out of styrofoam in order to have the same gravity that Earth does.The map of Faerun looks pretty dense, up until you realize there's often 100+ square miles of wilderness between known points of interest. Some entire European countries can fit into those spaces. While there's plenty of Faerun that's been written about, there's also considerable amounts that are left for entire kingdoms to materialize if that's what you want to put in those spaces.
>>94755732Nah, you just don't have fun.
>>94756537Mystara.
>>94761333>cool like EberronEberron is even shittier than FR (but not as bad as Dragonlance)
>>94757906>I personally think it'd be a lot cooler if there was plenty more recent lore released about the rest of the regions besides Faerûn, but some of it also suffers from lore that was a product of its time, and there's no way Warlocks of the Beach is touching any of it without butchering the lore and causing both outrage in oldheads and curiosity from newfriends who will then read lore the writers would rather leave unread, so the setting is locked in this status quo of 'if we don't mention the rest of Toril, we can pretend it doesn't exist.'There are two Forgotten Realms sourcebooks coming out later this year.
>>94762390That's right, FR has a giant Wang Kuo just hanging there to the southeast.
I think it's a great canvas with which to do your own unique, weird shit. Like, I spent a year or two building a setting which is just Faerun millenia after a world-spanning flood which consumed much of the landmass, let my players loose in it, and waited to see how long it took them to piece together where they really were.
Forgotten Realms is actually a great setting. Having been written for decades it's incredibly resource-dense - If you want to know anything about anything, chances are there's a source somewhere you can look to. There's a massive number of characters and locations that can be used to flesh out and develop any story, allowing you to have a background template you can expand upon or change however you wish.That's the real issue people have when they complain about Faerun. If there are elements they don't like, they're simply not creative enough to do something about it. It's like having the world's largest lego set with all these different pieces, but all you can think to do is follow the instructions to assemble exactly what's on the box, with no embellishment or creativity given of yourself.>inb4 "THE DM SHOULDN'T HAVE TO CHANGE ANYTHING TO SUIT THEIR own TASTES, IT SHOULD ALL BE PREPACKED HOW THEY WANT IT BEFOREHAND!
>>94761250>Seems pretty nit-picky of a complaint.There exist, unfortunately, a majority of Forgotten Realms players for whom every one of those 200+ books is a sacred cow.
>>94761947NTA but I find Exandria to be terribly bland. It also lacks any sort of real conflict that doesn't feel forced. All the politics are "proper 21st century multicultural", there's no racial disharmony (e.g. dark elves aren't evil underground dwellers, but noble people who talk through their problems in a multicultural society thats far better than the terrible expansionist empire that is their enemy for unexplained reasons). It's so inoffensive that it loops around to being offensive just for there being nothing much to do.You even notice it in Mercer's campaigns, where his most recent has one player trying to do a "punk rebel against authority" character but Mercer has played every authority in the game (including the villain) as honest and reasonable and fair so it just comes off as silly, there's nothing to rebel against or fight for. That's without the issue of the world warping so his indecisive, vacillating players are always considered heroes and good guys, when they're anything but, and are closer to a bunch of randoms LARPing as found family.
>>94762859>Eberron is shittier than Faerun>Greenwood's bastardized fap material is better than dungeon punk designed around the players being the real heroes of the settingKek. Even my child self knew Eberron was better than Faerun. I could not believe people would spend money on the most boring and generic setting possible rather than improvising their own. I do agree, however, that Dragonlance is worse.
What is everyone's problem with Dragonlance? The books take too much the plot?
>>94764056The Cataclysm is stupid, since it's framed as the result of "Good becoming too powerful" rather than "Good being corrupted into Evil". Also the writers felt some strange need to write no fewer than three retarded midget races into the setting.
>meanwhile, in a campaign setting whose superiority cannot be disputedhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdHmnrfAUKw
My issue with it has always been the lack of consistent lore. It's called "Forgotten Realms" but it's extremely rare when you come across something which has to do with the old empires (Netheril, Myth Drannor, etc.). The only thing I like are the cool names for some places and the lore/style of the gods is very good and memorable.
As FR has become the default D&D, it's lost its intial Greenwood charm, if there was one.That means it is forced to shift with editions, each shift becoming an excuse to clean house on some element, so it becomes a bit of a soup of nostalgia and corperat-mandated ideas.4E infamously deicded to clear the dead wood by comepletly severing it from it's past, while other 4E adaptions got much more lore-friendly treatments.5E realised that new players don't care and did the bare minimum once it was established that reverting back to the old lore wasn't important.
>>94764194The reason you don't get much lore on stuff like Netheril is because it allows DMs to add things that would not otherwise fit into the Forgotten Realms.
>>94760747that sentence makes no sense
>>94758333just don't include themI never read the novels. Whenever I see a name pop up in a module I resist the urge to check who that is in some wiki, instead I fill out whatever seems missing however I want. And that's it, outside of short term NPCs for adventures, but I'm sure you don't mean those. I don't see how this could be an issue, unless you have a DM obsessed with it.>>94761220they nuked some shit and changed the maps, it was pretty bothersome especially because 5e took ages to release enough maps for google results to stop showing you something clearly different.>>94761264>>The lore is great if you ignore the lorethey never said that, thoyou either need to learn how to read of take your schizo pills because you're talking alone.
>>94764056The good, evil, neutral wizard teams are fucking stupid.
>>94760960The Grey Box actually made me fall in love with the Forgotten Realms, and get its flavor.
>>94764756They're cool though. White Mages, Red Mages, and Black Mages.
>>94762518>>complains about magical realmsd-do you think gravity is a sex thing?>>94763493I tried using some of the less explored areas, like that Ghengis Khan land and the country ruled by a dragon. The 2e source books sucked so bad. Useless info that was at best a cool prompt for something, or budget balancing of grain sales in winter. If you want to use them as guides for a sandbox you might as well make a new thing.
>>94764756>we might have our moral differences, but we can all agree unlicensed wizards not paying their due to the union must be killedif anything it's the most realistic aspect
>>94755732>drowmilk.png
>>94764796>d-do you think gravity is a sex thing?You think it isn't?
>>94764809If it was set up that way that'd be... Well, kinda funny. But why doesn't every single black wizard wear a white robe? They're fucking evil.
>>94765374True, that shit makes no god damn sense. Even in a video game that would be dumb, but especially in ttrpg, which should be more realistic.
>>94765374>>94765467If you were an evil Wizard, you would wear black too and not give a fuck.
>>94765486Only If I was evil but also incredibly stupid.
>>94761140Yes but I can make a 300 year old elf adventurer that remembers having to deal with game mechanics from AD&D, all of the cataclysms of edition changes, and being damn glad that 5e has made the world much less terrifying. Imagine in your lifetime you went from healing one (1) hit point in a 24-hour span to regaining all of your hit points after eight hours of sleep, the undead no longer drain levels, disease is a meme, and attacks hitting still technically don't do physical damage until under half health.
>>94765486>If you were evil, you'd do something arbitrary that makes it harder for you to do evil.It's fucking stupid.
>>94756537>>94757147>>94757379Am I the only one who thinks Greyhawk is comfy as fuck? Far less mapped than Faerun so it can bend to your campaign. Less celebrity NPCs. Overall feels like more like an amateur homebrew setting with amusingly callous eugenicist elements and just having much more stretches of wild land with one big city (so the players can't murderhobo as much). Plus it's lowish magic but not boringly low.
i think pre ToT FR was good. this is the FR all the classic computer games were set in, pool of radiance, etc.
>>94765576As a Greyhawk DM, its swords-and-sorcery theme makes it fantastic for a low-power game. The party members feel like badasses that are the only ones that can get things done because the only comparable NPCs in the campaign are either linchpins of their communities, retired, or enemies. The enemies have to rely on mob tactics to hold their territory because magic isn't abundant enough for there to be eight spellcasters in every neighborhood, and it makes serious threats feel that much more exceptional when there's maybe one lich on the continent instead of four in the basement of this retired adventurer's bar. Instead of a bunch of boss monsters the party has to work their way through, they find larger hordes of increasingly-threatening monsters that could easily bog them down if they're not careful.The setting's information exists, but until recently it's been difficult to pin down, especially for non-Free City parts, so digging up lore is like a treasure hunt and its up to the DM to flesh out the actual minutia instead of having a street-by-street map of X city. The few celebrity NPCs exist, but they're actually occupied with their own business to make them feel larger-than-life, rather than that famous guy you know.Also, the villains just keep to themselves unless bothered, so unless there's explicitly a countdown to doomsday, the party really only has to worry about enemy recruitment and is open to RP fluff like dating or working a trade during downtime.
>>94764759I think the Grey Box should be required reading for people getting into FR.Currently it's like people reading the latest Harry Potter spinoff or the newest Gay Superman comic, or watching the newest Tolkien related thing, and then complaining about how no one should have ever liked this stuff.
>>94765374so evil people know you're cool, dummy. It's like asking why police officers or mailmen wear an uniform.
>>94762390I don't mind that it is stupidly big (Hell my personal setting is essentially "Ancient Mediterranean, but every country is as big as china"), but Faerun seems so empty, with vast swathes of perfectly good unclaimed land and neutral villages. It makes the sword coast seem like it's a sixteenth of it's actual size
>>94766744If you think it's too empty, that's for you to fill it in.I remember when I was younger, I would actually get a little frustrated when reading the FR campaign setting and there would be some hinted rumor or several suggestions of what was the truth about something, as opposed to a clear, hard "fact". But, it's a RPG setting, and it's important for the DM to make their own decisions.Faerun has tons of stuff, but it's not a singular world written by a single author with only a single storyline; it doesn't have a singular "truth". It does a lot of work for a DM, but it doesn't do everything for them, and I actually think that it's good that it says "look, we gave you the exact percentage of the population of halflings in Luskan, you can figure out what the name of the mayor of bumfucksville is on your own."
>>94765646Anon, you made a very good summary of why i love Greyhawk. A Warduke for you!
>>94756537Mystara died before it could live
>>94757147>>94762761>>94767021Greetings, Mr. Welch
>>94765646I think no-games get too mad over named NPCs, you can just not read the material and do what you want and it's all the same; but at the same time the FR dedicated DMs I've seen really like makimg you meet famous people most players don't give a fuck about. Like visiting family and an uncle makes you shake hands with a local celebrity in a field you never heard about. I guess it does attract a certain type of bizarre star fucker.
>>94766406What about the vast majority of people that don't consider themselves evil? No one is going to trust a blackrobe, because they are openly announcing that they are evil.
>>94755732I've never been particularly engaged with the setting whenever I'm in a tabletop campaign that uses it, but the Baldur's Gate games made me fall in love with it.
>>94767717saves you time, it's a more efficient world. If someone talks with you you know they agree on not being good. No need to match on tinder and after driving to the place then finding out one's a white robe and the other is a black robe. joking aside, it's just something made to turn the story into a very basic good vs evil. It sounds dumb and funny, but in practice it's no different than color coding in star wars.
>>94755732It's because it's NOT generic. It has a lot of setting specific stuff that people treat as generic and "canon" simply because WotC decided to make it the default 5e setting.It'd be like if WotC decided to make Mortal Kombat the default setting and you had to deal with retards getting confused when you told them there's no technicolor ninjas allowed at the table.
>>94764759>>94765683>I think the Grey Box should be required reading for people getting into FR.Agreed. Here's the PDF for anyone who's interested. https://files.catbox.moe/muhk7x.pdf
>>94768418>no technicolor ninjas on his table>calls other people retarded
>>94765576>>94765646>>94766983Get in here >>94762866, if you haven't already.
>>94767340My gripe with named NPCs is that a lot of the modules I've gone through steer the party towards interacting with or working around some celebrity. Curse of Strahd points you to Van Richten, Dragon Heist involves several different factions with powerful leaders present, Mad Mage is nearly a checklist due to having high-level parties. Phandalin thankfully doesn't do any of that, and actually lets the party earn some renown before the DM decides Elminster needs to show up to inform the party of some threat to magic that comes with unearthing the forge.In my Greyhawk game, aside from local setting celebrities they've worked their way up to impressing and speaking with, they've encountered exactly Mordenkainen, who I had as a scheduled encounter for specifically that day at the magic shop as he picked up a commission and he'd never appear again. He tested the Wizard, gave him a spell scroll of Mordenkainen's Faithful Shield Maidens, turned up his nose at their goody-two-shoes arguments for being heroes that beat the forces of darkness into submission when evil will always return to fill power vacuums, and teleported away never to be heard from again. Everyone in the party correctly thinks he's an asshole, but also the non-Wizard players laugh at the fact he basically told the wizard to summon himself some bitches.
>>94768603>basically told the wizard to summon himself some bitches.kek, "Here's your Touch Short Green Plants spell, friend-o." Seriously though, you're exactly right that's how powerful NPCs should be played: assholes who show up once, do a dick move, then are never seen again.
>>94768603Sounds like your issue is that WotC makes really shitty modules.
>>94768849I'm partial for assholes that promise to help and then leave the party hanging>Oh, this sounds like an important issue. Let me finish some stuff and I'll give you all you need.>That night they get a message>Something popped up and I already promised to do this and I already flaked on this people a couple times, I'm sure you can handle whatever you were doing. Hugs and Kisses.not really screwing the party, just offering a perfect solution and then they fuck them over because they don't care
>>94768937NTAtrue, but there's a star fucker energy that seems to attrack some DMs to that stuff, it's a feature for them
>>94763630>no racial disharmonyeh i mean its standard fantasy racism with goblins/other monstrous races not being liked in human land and non-monstrous not really being like in dark elf land > their enemy for unexplained reasonsthey do explain it. they 2 empires with borders getting closer and the Dwindallian empire stole Luxon beacons. They've also had several border skirmishes iirc.I havent watched campaign 3 so cant comment on the 2nd half
>>94755732>Why does it suck so much?It doesnt.>I hate this setting but I can't quite figure out what makes it so bad. Is it that it's just generic and boring?>I DONT LIKE IT THEREFORE ITS BAD!I wish we could retroactively abort you. >>94756278Reddit: the opinion
>>94755732I like it. I like Ed Greenwood, too.
>>94768498Elminster's Forgotten Realms from 4E is also really good. I used those two books for a DCC campaign.
>>94770120I don't like it, but whenever I see why Ed went a certain way or how he deals with something in practice I end up liking him.
>>94767340I would rather just make my own homebrew world so I don't get players correcting me on the lore or whatever. Just keep the outer planes the same
>>94765683Yeah, Gray Box FR in a word is "playable".When I read about the Dales and its neighboring kingdoms of weirdos, and the other kingdoms of weirdos a short trip across the Sea of Fallen Stars, and the Red Wizards and Zhents, it's easy to see how it fits together in real campaigns that Ed ran - and how you can use them too. The Sword Coast and Waterdeep as somewhere you visit as a contrast enhances those locations, and lets you emphasize what makes them different.It's generic, but it also feels quite special.
>>94772174>genericWhat about it is generic?Can you give examples of "non-generic" settings so we can mock you?All I am seeing is "generic" being used by reddit midwits when they cannot properly explain why something bothers them because they dont know.Its like seeing a writer praise a really shitty plot to cope with it he hides behind a layer of irony and claims "its a subversion".Its a nothing-word used by NPCs and spread by midwits like a virus to give their personal dislike a veneer of objectivity. Now watch the the butthurt and mental mind-gymnastics as they flounder and try to act like "I DONT LIKE IT SO ITS BAD" is a legitimate opinion.
X
>>94772447>Can you give examples of "non-generic" settings so we can mock you?Not that guy but Dark Sun, Spelljammer, Ravenloft, Mystara, Dragonlance, Eberron, etc. I mean, hell, even Greyhawk is more unique and it's trying to be a generic sword and sorcery setting. You are right however to note that being generic isn't automatically a fault. It can even be a strength. The real problem with Faerun is two-fold: it is tied to a highly successful secondary sphere of novels/games and edition-driven change, i.e. corporate fuckery. The former creates really shitty DMs and players, a phenomena I've seen reflected in the 40krpg community. The latter, meanwhile, is just a headache to deal with. Personally though, I don't see much point in investing a pre-made setting that I could come up with an afternoon. Still, I appreciate there being a default setting because D&D needs one. Also, people don't read like they used to so maybe they lack enough exposure to create a generic heroic fantasy setting off the top of their head.>NPCs, Reddit, midwits, viruses, etc.What are you talking about?
>>94772748>Not that guy but Dark Sun, Spelljammer, Ravenloft, Mystara, What makes them non-generic?Spelljammer is just Faerun but in space and you give it a pass.Dark Sun is just Faerun after a similar magic apocalypse except it turned into a desert and you give it a pass.Ravenloft is just Faerun but World of Darkness and you give it a pass.Mystara is the same sort of pulp fantasy as Faerun and you give it a pass.>Dragonlance, Eberronoh okay, nevermind, now you are just pretending to be retarded.>The real problem with Faerun is two-fold: it is tied to a highly successful secondary sphere of novels/games and edition-driven change, i.e. corporate fuckery. The former creates really shitty DMs and players, a phenomena I've seen reflected in the 40krpg community. The latter, meanwhile, is just a headache to deal with. Personally though, I don't see much point in investing a pre-made setting that I could come up with an afternoonSo what you hate is a symptom, not the disease.also note, that when people say they like Faerun, literally zero people are talking about the modern Iteration but about FR during AD&D days.Its just like people who say they like Dragon Age or Warhammer Fantasy.No one likes what it became with "coprorate fuckery".>What are you talking about?You.
>>94769621Nta but that does sound pretty damn tedious.>>94755732I actually like the realms for the amount of small details and I use it to run campaigns in places like cormyr that aren't on the sword coast. Every town is well defined and the 2nd ed material has a bunch of plot hooks more or less built into almost every settlement. There literally aren't enough hours in the day to write that much stuff as a solo GM. Toss out the bad just like any other setting and it works surprisingly well.
>>94758146Safe horny pic
