So, this makes me want to ask the question, why doesn't D&D just adopt FR as the default world, and let Eberron and Dark Sun exist as other options since it seems like FR and the core books are both trying to fulfill the niche of a high fantasy world. As things stand now, it's as if there are two alternate high fantasy worlds competing with each other.
Anyway, I'm new to D&D, and I've only played 4e, but that is my observation.
its for the core world known as pol.
its all bad. Asmodeus say so and thats the bottom line.
Forgotten Realms, from their perspective, was too "loaded down" with tons of lore, history, and the work of many, many people. Eberron and Dark Sun, they too had their own history and lore, although neither of those were viewed as information heavy.
They wanted, for 4E core, not only a simplified and streamlined system for play, but one that also focused on making the players center stage (heroes in a "points of light" setting). Also, the idea was to change things up such that everything would be modular and easy to borrow for DMs. Magic rules would be changed and simplified, as would combat and the nature of worlds (especially with respect to outer planes and planar or otherworldly beings). The Realms had the most lore that needed to be changed, so it essentially got a harder slam compared to the other settings. But the main reason was to bring everything in line, all worlds, such that the new core rules applied to all "current" settings (note that they're skipping much older settings, like Greyhawk).
Pushing the Realms toward this modular style, with all the changes that were deemed necessary, well... it split the fan base. To some degree they knew that would happen, but that's life. Many people left entirely, although they did generate some interest in the Realms from new people that had felt it too intimidating before.
Yet... why not go back to Greyhawk? Well, they could have, but it also has a great deal of history and probably would've taken too long to update. And Eberron and Dark Sun... although they don't have a ton of problems, they are highly specific settings with their own definite feel.
The Realms became the dark epic setting, as it now has a heavier mix of aberrations and tieflings.
Dark Sun is sort of the post-apocalypse setting, though it's been in recovery.
Eberron is the steampunkish setting, for lack of a better word.
Greyhawk? Generic enough, but probably too much history - and it comes with a definite fanbase.
So in a weird way, they needed a new generic setting. And their Points of Light (PoL) setting in core 4E appears to fit that niche. It's new enough that it doesn't have tons of canon like the Realms or Greyhawk, the current fans can't rigidly demand certain things about it, and it's generic enough that it can be developed in any way they like. Each of the prior settings then becomes just another alternate. The Realms really are no longer "core" or "prime" but just another option, so our heydey is literally quite over.
That said, Bael Turath does exist in the PoL setting (or PoLand) as some are calling it. And if you remember way back in 2nd edition all of the universes/settings were linked by Spelljammer. They downplayed this interconnectedness during 3E, but I suspect they're bringing it back with a new twist. So it doesn't matter that Bael Turath doesn't exist in the Realms as long as it exists somewhere (e.g. PoLand). Although the origin of tieflings is somewhat different for the Realms, that's fine really, because there's probably a "deep" multi-universe (multi-setting) explanation that will eventually connect the two origins in some mysterious way.
Forgotten Realms, from their perspective, was too "loaded down" with tons of lore, history, and the work of many, many people. Eberron and Dark Sun, they too had their own history and lore, although neither of those were viewed as information heavy
I consider this unfortunate since I am interested in the history and lore that has been built up in FR. Part of the interest of FR for me is the history.
Thank you all for your informative replies. That was an excellent response Jorunhast and it gives a newcomer like myself a good deal of perspective on the situation. My first reaction, however, is that they failed if they were trying to steer players towards the PoL setting.
Initially, I don't know that they had this planned. It certainly feels to me like they're just starting to implement it now. Perhaps the reception to the modified Realms wasn't as big as they'd hoped for, and maybe what we're seeing now with PoL is a fairly recent decision.
At least in the community where I game, I have never see a generic or vanilla campaign being played just using the PoL material. Everyone either plays LFR, Eberron, or Dark Sun. Therefore, it seems to me that it would make more sense to just make FR the default setting, and view Dark Sun and Eberron as alternative special situation worlds.
I agree, and I feel the same way. But I'm not sure if the new Realms have as wide an appeal for new players as a more generic setting (like PoL) where you literally don't need to learn anything about it before playing.
I consider this unfortunate since I am interested in the history and lore that has been built up in FR. Part of the interest of FR for me is the history.
I agree. Many of the lore/history enthusiasts that used to post here are now just gone.
Reallly what they should do is make all the information more generic, instead of pertaining to one specific world, in the Core Rule books. Its just doesnt seem fair to me that all this lore and sourcebooks is being put out for the Core world, and what does the Realms get? 2 books and 1 adventure. And ok I guess we get a samattering of DDI articles, but Core world gets even more!!!
PoL must be stopped!!!
Or not.
Or not.
No kidding. Considering how many on the 4E board feel about FR fans, even admitting that you are one is risky. That place scares me.
in fact they should not ahve done a deity section in the core 3 series to begine with.
4E fans are fluff haters and just find wonderful anything the devs produce.
Sadly, that's because they've been corrupted by the mind-numbing inanity that is WoW.
I dont want the FR as the default world either.
in fact they should not have done a deity section in the core 3 series to begine with.
Agreed. Any inclusion of material that implies a particular setting in the rule books is really not to my taste. I'd much rather have seen a short chapter discussing different cultures and different approaches to religion than a section giving specific deities. Perhaps one or two examples, but otherwise I'm "old-school" in what I like in my rule books.
Sadly, that's because they've been corrupted by the mind-numbing inanity that is WoW.
Careful... the unwashed masses of WoW enthusiasts will hear you. They defend their addiction more fervently than the most desperate meth addicts, hence "World of WarCrack"...
Sadly, that's because they've been corrupted by the mind-numbing inanity that is WoW.
Careful... the unwashed masses of WoW enthusiasts will hear you. They defend their addiction more fervently than the most desperate meth addicts, hence "World of WarCrack"...
It saddens me, but WoW has managed to diminish the entire RPG community from my perspective. I was a fan of the original UO and Everquest games. All WoW did was cherry pick ideas from those previous games and dumb everything down so that any child in elementary school could understand. There wasn't a single original idea that they didn't copy from a previous game in WoW. Furthermore, they reduced RPG's to their most basic and elementary components.
Unfortuantely, because of the mass appeal of a reduced and easier game, other companies who had originally produced far better games began to emulate the WoW model.
And now, here I am in the table top rpg world, and I'm still seeing the effects of WoW.
And now, here I am in the table top rpg world, and I'm still seeing the effects of WoW.
It's all about the cash. But it's a good thing that only one table top rpg is affected. The top games like Vampire or Call of Cthulhu are untouched.
if a gammer didn't play Ultima in some form, they don't know roleplaying.
and the wowtards, have one other bad thing about them, and its that they are turned away at job fairs.
WoW is a work of Art as far as its engine is concerned, past that its nothing but PvP/hack and slash.
its not roleplay
Actually, after I started this post, I noticed that they are advertising novels on their main page that are set in the PoL world, so apparently they are planning on doing more with this. I'm not sure what they think this default campaign will offer that FR does not.
An incredible amount less people who hate FR on principle.
It's worth noting when the wizards authors were more active here around when FR came out I directly asked why FR wasn't made the core setting. The basic answer was "Because a lot of people don't like FR". It was when various FR discussions occurred on other forums did I realize how true this actually was.
Actually, after I started this post, I noticed that they are advertising novels on their main page that are set in the PoL world, so apparently they are planning on doing more with this. I'm not sure what they think this default campaign will offer that FR does not.
An incredible amount less people who hate FR on principle.
It's worth noting when the wizards authors were more active here around when FR came out I directly asked why FR wasn't made the core setting. The basic answer was "Because a lot of people don't like FR". It was when various FR discussions occurred on other forums did I realize how true this actually was.
What about FR offends people the most? My only guess could be the novels. Unless someone just hates Drizzt, Elminster, or the Harpells, there really is very little to offend in FR.
From the perspective of someone new to D&D, I was surprised how genereic the FR Player's Handbook was. I had read a couple of the novels about 15 years ago when I was a teenager, so I was fundamentally new to D&D and the campaign, so I was expecting to learn something about FR when I got the PHB. However, after reading the PHB I was surprised that I still didn't feel like I knew what FR was or why I would want to play in it.
The PHB mostly just tells you this is a high fantasy setting like LoTR, it explains that a cataclysmic event called the Spell Plague has occurred, it's 100 years since the last book, and then it lists the names and geography of the backgrounds, the names of the languages, and the gods.
It does nothing to differentiate FR from any other high fantasy setting. And the backgrounds give such generic information that one might think many of the cities and areas are identical.
What about FR offends people the most? My only guess could be the novels. Unless someone just hates Drizzt, Elminster, or the Harpells, there really is very little to offend in FR.
Going from my own experience, I think its because FR gets the most love outside of the pencil/paper D&D community. Lets look at novels, comics, replica weapons, iconic miniatures, and video games. Forgotten Realms out numbers all other D&D worlds when it comes to this. Naturally, people who've not gotten into FR might see all the love and despise it because maybe they love Greyhawk or Eberron more? I can only start to guess people's frustration with the setting and in some vain attempt, WotC is hoping to close the gap by making 4eFR more vague and not loaded with tons of lore to draw in different crowds.
From the perspective of someone new to D&D, I was surprised how genereic the FR Player's Handbook was. I had read a couple of the novels about 15 years ago when I was a teenager, so I was fundamentally new to D&D and the campaign, so I was expecting to learn something about FR when I got the PHB. However, after reading the PHB I was surprised that I still didn't feel like I knew what FR was or why I would want to play in it.
The PHB mostly just tells you this is a high fantasy setting like LoTR, it explains that a cataclysmic event called the Spell Plague has occurred, it's 100 years since the last book, and then it lists the names and geography of the backgrounds, the names of the languages, and the gods.
By PHB, I'm assuming you mean the Forgotten Realms Player's Guide. With that assumption, I'll proceed. IMO, I don't think it was at all generic. It gave any player an idea of the various areas and nations of the Realms and even a bit of a hook as to what sort of person or adventurer might come from there. The Realms's deities are still vastly different and diverse from any other campaign setting. Further, their array of Realm-ish paragon paths and epic destinys further distances itself from other campaign settings. And then we have the races at the beginning of the book which tells of the various races (and sub-races) of elves, eladrin, humans, and dwarves while incorporating Devas, Tieflings, Shifters, etc.... specifically into the Realms. It states how silver elves and gold elves in general view the Realms as well as where one might find a group or cluster of shifters. True, I wish is was bigger and explained the myrid of complex human ethnicities but due to page/word constraints, I understand.
It does nothing to differentiate FR from any other high fantasy setting. And the backgrounds give such generic information that one might think many of the cities and areas are identical.
Yes, it's a litte more generic when it comes to the backrounds, but I think this serves to help people get into the Realms without giving them the full monty. If a person really likes Cormyr and the purple knights and the war wizards or the city of Waterdeep and Baldur's Gate yet hates (or doesn't know) the rest of the Realms or huge swaths of them, then those vaguly detailed areas would help this sort of person still incorporate parts of the Realms into their current setting (whatever that might be) and help them get a foot into the door of the Realms.
It's a big reason WotC are doing these "core" backrounds and further expanding on their own "homebrew" setting. If someone doesn't like all of their core stuff but may like how they did Bel Turath then maybe they'd want to put that place in their own setting or even a fixed setting like FR. I could easily see Bel Turath as some sort of ancient civilization around present-day Impiltur or maybe it was conquored early by the Nar.
Either or, I've come to use the whole of D&D's "core" areas as new areas in my own homebrew world. They're parts of the continent many people have never been to and it's separated by a very large mountain range thats filled with vicious orcs, giants, goliaths, and any other sort of non-humanoid monster that might inhabit that sort of terrain. But once you cross over the Mts and enter the Nentir Vale, an adventurer will find all sorts of new civilizations (and I guess boldy go where no one from that side has gone before *cliche, i know*).
What about FR offends people the most? My only guess could be the novels. Unless someone just hates Drizzt, Elminster, or the Harpells, there really is very little to offend in FR.
I grew up reading the novels. I had the old AD&D boxed set. (but I didn't start playing D&D until 3e) I played the old Goldbox games (still have a lot of love for Pool of Radiance), and moved on to the newer games like Baldurs Gate 1 and 2, Icewind Dale 1 and 2, etc. However, I never wanted to play D&D in the FR.
Main reasons:
1) Everybody and their brother was epic level. The tiniest towns has epic level commoners. Mighty men who could scythe wheat in the back 40 with one swipe. Ok, I know that's an extreme exaggeration, but the overabundance of epic level NPCs was staggering. What do they need my little 1st level adventuring behind for? That and many of them struck me as Mary Sues. *cough* Elminster *cough*
2) Too developed. Which led to trekkie-like fans of the lore... and Mystra for some reason. I knew people who loved the FR and were lore-hounds of the first degree. If you wanted to play in the realms, then you better know your lore or you were scoffed at. It just turned me off. I stopped reading the books too.
I came back to it with 4e. While it's certainly a minority opinion on these boards (extreme minority) I think the Spellplague and the (hopefully to stay permanent) death of Mystra is the best thing to happen to the Realms. If anything because it wiped the slate clean and made it playable (in my mind) again. The old lore is still there, there's just room for new lore now.
I learned by playing the Baldur's Gate series, the IWD series, the nwn series, porII:romnd, and yes reading a few novels...
I am no lore hound, but it is fun.
I'd like to see proof that players were scoffed at for not knowing the realms lore
That used to happen on these forums...
I never saw any of it...... not that I spent time reading every thread.....
moving on
oh.... wsas this before I came or before I started posting
You never got the misfortune of reading the novels forums before Wizards banned all discussion of them. I mean, not just the novel forum but also the actual FR novel forum as well. You could get banned for discussing novels period. It simply wasn't allowed.
One should ask themselves why this was done and the answer is pretty obvious.
So, this makes me want to ask the question, why doesn't D&D just adopt FR as the default world,
You don't want the Realms to be adopted as the default world. See, I am a big fan of the World of Greyhawk. 3rd edition used Greyhawk as the default world. That meant that every rule book that was released shoe-horned every single thing into the world without any rhyme or reason as to how it should actually fit or whether it even made sense in the first place. So what ended up was a bunch of useless trash that didn't feel like Greyhawk at all.
Now, the 4E design team in its heavy-handed devotion to crunch and balance writes even worse fluff than what was written back in the day. Were the Realms made the default world, you would get whitewash genericism that pulls the feel of the Realms in completely random directions.
I'd like to see proof that players were scoffed at for not knowing the realms lore
Then you would have had to game with the people I was gaming with at the time. (emphasis on was, past tense) If you didn't know some of the littlest obscure details you were looked down upon.
Sadly, that's because they've been corrupted by the mind-numbing inanity that is WoW.
Careful... the unwashed masses of WoW enthusiasts will hear you. They defend their addiction more fervently than the most desperate meth addicts, hence "World of WarCrack"...
Given that all of 4th ed reads more like a PnP version OF WoW, gee, I wonder why those WoW fans are here now?
It saddens me, but WoW has managed to diminish the entire RPG community from my perspective. I was a fan of the original UO and Everquest games. All WoW did was cherry pick ideas from those previous games and dumb everything down so that any child in elementary school could understand.
Given that my friend's six year old daughter plays it, yeah...
It's all about the cash. But it's a good thing that only one table top rpg is affected. The top games like Vampire or Call of Cthulhu are untouched.
So theyre still running and making OWOD books? Oh wait no, OWOD is dead in White Wolf's eyes, and the crap that is Requiem is their new baby
What about FR offends people the most? My only guess could be the novels. Unless someone just hates Drizzt, Elminster, or the Harpells, there really is very little to offend in FR.
My guess is that its more of the "WoW effect". SO many people brought FR style names to that game and other fantasy MMOs, that those with FR names were looked down upon, and the "leethaxur" typew names became the guys that were honored for their creativity