How do you feel about Forgotten Realms?

>>49728959
I have no strong feelings one way or the other.

>>49728959
I don't remember.

>>49728959
I don't know enough to really judge it, and I haven't heard anything interesting enough to make me want to learn more about it.

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>>49728959

It's okay. Basic, generic kitchen sink fantasy.

But;
>Amn
>Calimshan
>Thesk
>Narfell
>Halruaa
>Chult

This is all fucking gibberish and is a good example of one of my biggest problems with fantasy writing

>>49729017
Not using actual real world naming conventions? That is, usually boiling down to adjective-noun then broken telephone over several centuries?

>>49728959

I don't know much about it but would like to learn more. What can /tg/ tell me about the interesting parts?

>>49728959
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

>>49728959
I'm really done with it and wish I could never see it again. Any originality or adventure in the setting has been drained from it by it evolving into *the* kitchen sink setting and having it basically beaten to death by WotC trying to get them shekels out of it. All the good pieces of media made in it came out so long ago, and everything made lately is really just bland rubbish that makes me want to hide and then die.

It's twice as big as it needs to be.

It's basically six major campaign settings divided by region, with a few other minor campains tagged on as well like Kara-Tur and Maztica.

You've got just about every type of fantasy campaign available in Faerun, twice over.

>>49728959
I hate it

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>>49728959

I think it's boring. It's very generic fantasy - the usual elf-orc-dwarf shit without any surprises, plus real world mythological creatures from every corner of Earth all randomly mixed in, with a few original things on top. It has the standard DnD conceit where somehow there are still ordinary kings and queens and aristocracies despite Wizards and Clerics being able to rule everything. Wall of the Faithless is stupid. Former PCs turning into canon gods of the setting is a stupid, self-indulgent cliche. Drizzt is stupid. The extended realms are mostly boring. Honestly the whole thing feels like a shitty rennaissance fair, where the fake tavern's serving wench has a Minnesota accent and serves you barbecue wings, before hurrying off to flirt with the one guy who isn't in costume.

I might have said it's a lazy setting too, but it has so much splatbook detail that calling it lazy hardly fits. What I do think is lazy is shit like "the Egyptian gods are in this setting cuz they got kidnapped from Earth by some bad dudes and now they're here!" or "Dragonborn become a core race, so suddenly two worlds collide and a continent full of Dragonborn appears".

Overall I'd say it epitomizes what I dislike about DnD settings and generic fantasy in general. Luckily I've managed to turn my group onto Dark Sun so I'll never have to revisit Forgotten Shit ever again.

It's easy enough to steal from. If someone rolls a cleric of Bahamut (and it is always Bahamut), guess my setting now includes the old fart.

>>49729260

>Honestly the whole thing feels like a shitty rennaissance fair, where the fake tavern's serving wench has a Minnesota accent and serves you barbecue wings, before hurrying off to flirt with the one guy who isn't in costume.

Couldn't have described it better, honestly.

I like it.
Realms is for D&D and D&D novels. Don't expect more than that.

I can jump into any D&D game and if its in the FR I know the basics of how the world works. I know where I am, what people think about things, the tone, the history.

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>>49728959
It's fine.

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I'll be the weird guy and say I like it. Or rather its more fair to say that I LIKED it. I liked it before 4e happened and the lore took it up the ass by wizards of the coast killing all the gods and adding in tieflings as their own race and dragonborn.

Would I say its a 'good' setting in the sense that its realistic, no. But it was good for what it was, a DND setting. It had all sorts of locations and environments to explore, preexisting cultures for DMs to build on and just enough detail to give DM something to work with without telling them every single thing.

That said, 4e kind of killed it for me.

>>49728959
was pretty interesting before 4e and shit away from fucking Sword Coast and the like tends to be much weirder and somewhat fresh albeit almost completely ignored and criminally underrated for more familliar stuff which defined the setting. Stuff from Thay, Rashemen, Icewind Dale and even Al-Qadim doesn't seem to get much attention from the writers then guess they are Forgotten

>>49729017
Care to elaborate?

>>49728959
A place with a rich history and storied cast of characters which neither needs nor wants player characters.

(It's garbage)

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>>49732228
This

Like and played the pre-4e material, read the more popular novels (except the drizzt-only prequel ones), and continued playing the pre-4e stuff with Pathfinder. I actually like the kitchen sink nature of it but see it as just another piece of the whole tapestry of D&D mythology that includes Planescape, Spelljammer, and everything those encompass. Even with 5e my group still pretends 4e never happened. Might be because my group of 14+ years is primarily DMed by a massive FR lorefag.

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>>49732803

It's best to avoid using alien-sounding made up words when writing fiction, unless you're deliberately establishing some race/place/concept as an obvious "Other". It's a common mistake for mediocre fantasy writers to inundate the reader with gibberish under the impression it fleshes out the setting more when really it just sounds weird and unnatural.

The common counter to this point is "Tolkien did it". Which yes, he did, but Tolkien also wrote entire languages and every one of his made up words had an obvious consistency to it. He did a good job of making the languages sound memorable and unique. Most people, like the guys who made the FR map, are just using mismatches of syllables because they think it sounds fancy. This causes a lot of places to sound samey; absolutely nothing in that map stands out.

Not that a shitload of places like "Havenshire" and "Dragonstooth" sound much better. It's honestly a fine line, trying to create unique fantasy place names which don't sound either too generic or too bizarre.

>>49732883
>A place with a rich history and storied cast of characters which neither needs nor wants player characters

You can dislike it, but I think thats a poor reason. There ARE heroes in FR, but that doesn't mean theres no need for player characters. If you or your DM can't think of anything for you to do thats your own lack of imagination.

There ARE legendary heroes and villains in FR. But It's a dnd setting, things are a larger than life. Though Drizzt and Elminster can't fix everything. It's a big damn world ya know.

>>49733038
That is a good way of putting it. Adding to that, Tolkein really did develop his world and introduced concepts that have become part of the established fantasy canon, to the point that Elves and Dwarves and shit are common. The Forgotten Realms is a setting laid out by setting splats rather than a book, so any introduction is just going to be obtuse.

In the end people play these high fantasy settings as there is something that they are familiar with while also seeing something new. The Forgotten Realms adds new shit, but doesn't keep it consistent to the point that the entire setting actually feels like something new (As in the case of some other D&D settings).

>>49729284
I can appreciate that, at least.

>>49733078
>Though Drizzt and Elminster can't fix everything.
This.

Elminster canonically used to spend a shitload of time on other planes, researching magic, or doing whatever. He's never guaranteed to be around, and he explicitly turned down helping several big events because he was busy with his own thing. Even if it's on his doorstep he might not be available.

Drizzt is pretty limited to running around the North and Silver Marches, anywhere south of Waterdeep and he basically has no reason to even show his face most of the time.

>>49728959

At least it isn't Golarion

>>49728997
Underrated post, you gave me a laff

>>49735300
This I can agree with. FR has turned into a kitchen sink over the years, partly through publishing necessity, sure, but there have been reams and reams of material (mostly 2E stuff) that gives it a much more "lived in" feel, like it's an actual world beyond being the kitchen sink.

Golarion is just a bunch of individual themed campaign settings stuck together on one map for the purposes of adventure paths. Like, in one place you have Vikings, right next to Neanderthal tribes and Slavic myth by way of Russia and witches, while just to the east of there is Demons Fucking Everywhere and south is Transylvania, bordered to its west by AdventurerLand and OrcLand.

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>>49735281
And even then, why is your DM going to just have them show up?

Admittedly I'm the kind of DM who tries to avoid using canon characters in my games anyway. Number one its cheesy as all fuck and two it takes attention away from the players who should be the protagonists of the story.

>>49735300
I think that's the best that can be said about it. Although I like the parts of Golarion that have guns better than the entirety of Forgotten Realms.

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>>49735337
Guns in my fantasy RPG?

Disgusting

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>>49735326

>>49735329
>And even then, why is your DM going to just have them show up?
An example I've seen is when the not!Mongols invaded, and the main characters tried going to Elminster to ask for aid. His response was a politely worded "fuck off, I'm busy".

>>49733078
This stuff can be too easily turned into Exalted setting

>>49735357
Good DM. If you just want to get someone else to do your adventuring for you why bother?

>>49735351
No societal progress? Man your games must be boring. Unless you're playing like Sword and Sandal or something less into the future.

I simply prefer the matchlock and magi approach better than the sword and sorcery one.

>>49729017
>Bukhara
>Tashkent
>Arrakan

>>49728959
It's excellent, but solely for "Wizards fucking around with wizard shit.
Use it for wizards having no sense of right and wrong with mystra to stop them if they try to completely fuck over the setting, then just sit back and fight over whether to make catgirls, become a lich, or drop a giant golden dildo on thay today.

>>49728959
I don't dislike it...

It's still an okay setting if you don't take the campaign too seriously.

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>>49728959
most boring official D&D setting

>>49729017
have a better generic fantasy setting

>>49729613
This is pretty much how I feel about it
Yes it's super generic but it works for a bog standard D&D setting that anyone can pick up and get the gist of in under a minute

>>49728959
I like the setting as a whole, and some of the ideas behind the setting, like how every region is supposed to be good enough for entire campaigns from 1 to 20. But there are a few too many "world events" that basically make you wonder why Forgotten Realms isn't more fucked than Dark Sun.

>>49735711
>But there are a few too many "world events" that basically make you wonder why Forgotten Realms isn't more fucked than Dark Sun.
Many of the world events seem to have been designed to sell shit back in the 3E era. If you look at the FR timeline, they get ridiculously common around the time 3rd edition hit, 1E and 2E were comparatively fairly scarce - when they happened, if they happened, they were usually concentrated in a particular area.

>>49735639
FYI, I'm pretty sure that map's geography is a cut and paste from Feist's Riftwar stuff. The names and shit are added, but it's way too similar otherwise, right down to some of the location, well, locations.

>>49728959
I don't like "kitchen sink" settings. I don't like super high magic settings. And I don't like settings with huge backlogs of lore and famous NPCs. I've never actually played in Forgotten Realms, but based on what I've heard and read about it, I have no interest.

>>49729260
>I'd say it epitomizes what I dislike about DnD settings and generic fantasy in general.
Can't really sum it up better than that.

>>49735353
This makes parts of the setting seem fun though. Hell yes I would adventure in Conan vs Robots land, and in Arabian Nights on crack.

>>49729042
All the video games take place on the sword coast or thereabouts for some reason.

Generally it's full of shit. Bland, mellow, inconsistent, with ridiculous power levels that make it anime or capecomic-loke instead of clasy old fantasy, retardedly powerful magic that also fails to consistently affect the world, sometimes creating powerful deus ex machinas, and able to uphold powerful magocracies here and there, and everywhere else wololo, just plain late medieval/renaissance and quite badly done despite all that shit going on around. You want some setting that does it good - Eberron. While I don't really like it, I at least respect it for being consistent, well designed, true to its own tropes and aesthetic, something FR is far from
Add stupid DMNPCs of authors. And Magical Realms of the tabletop gaming's prime perv Ed Greenwood.
Yes, it's bad.
>>49733038
And addtitionaly, despite having VASTLY different cultures in it, forgotten realms place names sound the sam way everywhere. No matter not!egypt, not!celticbtitain, not!india, it is the same shittery, utterly destroying any impression of linguistical diversity.
Moreover while place names are like that, there are even less consistency in character names. so we got like not!vikings living in "faeruniangibberishnamedtown", one is named Horik Ragnarsonn and other one is Huthleth Dhducdsacew. It kills what's remains of any consistency dead.
Moreover, tha names are ont only random, they are unoriginal, like the names were invented by someone who wanted to make them random but could only think of few the same syllabes in various combinations.

>>49735756
Basically, the things you don't like are not really that important in an actual game.

It being Kitchen Sink doesn't matter unless your party decides to travel great distances constantly. For the most part, you just have the flavor of a particular region.

Same goes with Lore and NPCs, in that only relevant parts matter, and how much is relevant is up to the DM.

There's also plenty of regions where magic is pretty rare, and most people are still shocked and impressed by even minor magic tricks. It's only in certain urban areas that magic is treated as commonplace.

>>49736105
It's like you're talking about a complete different setting, all in your efforts to try and make shit up about it.

Overall, you don't seem to appreciate regional differences, and most of your complaints are just trying to scrounge up conflicting buzzwords. Bland, but ridiculous? What are you even trying to say by calling it "mellow"?

And, you seem to have confused the words "inconsistent" and "diverse."

>>49736129
Wow, FR IDF is as dense as one could expect. Possibly autismo too.

>hurr buzzwords
I was presenting an summary opinion, retard, because I didn't feel like elaborating about every sigle piece of shit, you retard. By that way any post that isn't textwall analysis can be attacked as "le buzzwords", moron. Including your own.

>conflicting words durr
Yep, totally. There is any conflict. Lot of ridiculous over-the top things automatically make things interesting and un-bland. Well, nope. Unless for you it does, but then you may proceed to getting excited about new transformers movie you damn pleb, It's not my fucking problem.

>muh diversity
Except diversity is good when it does make sense and don't contradict basic believability I'm not even touching word "realism" because I don't believe that fantasy should be overly realistic, and moreover FR isn't even close to this tier. World is organic body, so should be fictional ones. Neighbouring regions and cultures influence each other, and laws of physics/magic and baic human psychology are the same everywhere. Political powers must be balanced for status quo to be preserved. FR fails at any of that, or explains it with shitty "le ebin level wizard did it :--DDD". It is totally possible to create a diverse world that makes sense in this light and there are such settings. But FR is far from them, it's authors ksu thrown at random various ideas for countreis/cultures and glued them together even more randomly, then spiced up with "detail" which for most part feels as fake and stupid as something written by basement dwelling autist could.

>>49736411
and finally
>mellow
If you're so interested in meaning f this word, well, I'll explain. There is no sense of danger in FR, no thrill. Baddies all feel like moustache-twirling saturday morning cartoon villains. Everything is sweetened to the level of vomit. Even when FR tryhards to be edgy or even gory, result is laughably fake and comical. Even demons feel like cardboard cutouts which only indimidating value are their numeric stats in the game. Damn Hobbit has more sense of danger and darker overtones than FR, and that's a damn children's book.

Don't like it; never liked it.

Baldur's Gate somehow managed to make it interesting by playing up bottom barrel monster manual dregs like Xvarts and Gibberlings, as well as second tier mainstays like Gnolls and Hobgoblins. Surprising how leaving out Orcs and Goblins gives the setting some interest. Great attention to detail with the architecture, too.

I just mention all this because this is the only time I've ever liked FR. It is boring in every other vidya game and don't even get me started on the novels.

>>49728959
5/10 it's okay for a generic setting

>>49735351
>not liking magic guns

>>49728959
I've actually been looking to get some help regarding this- I've started running a Godbound game set in the Time of Troubles- and I'd love some more info on what was happening in Faerun at the time- most online info is very sparse, and the Avatar series is... I got halfway through the first book before abandoning it because all the characters are awful but Cyric, who is reasonable albeit a tad angsty, though appropriately so for his backstory, and Kelemvor, who is at least humorously retarded. Fuck the mage though, she's a bit of a bitch. Also, not a lot happened that affects the wider world in a noticable way.

Anyway, the PC (one on one game) is a barbarian in Icewind Dale, and I've got him taking on an organized horde of mountain orcs lead by Illneval, but I need stuff to follow up on that, and while I totally can just invent stuff wholesale, I'd rather not.

It had some good shit.

>>49729017
Lots of places have names with really convoluted, origins routed in multiple dead languages.

Half of the villages, towns and cities in England have places names that are essentially gibberish.

>>49735711

Having oceans and water helps, I imagine.

>>49735873
Arabian Nights is its own campaign setting. Even though it takes place on the same world as Forgotten Realms, it isn't the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, it is the Al-Qadim campaign setting. If that makes any sense.

Also it is actually pretty good, and can be stolen for use in a better world easily, as it is quite self-contained.

>>49736571
Seriously, if someone showed you a map with a place called "Lichfield" on it you'd call them a retard, but it's a real place.

>>49736708
At least "field" is an actual word. If you look at place names in rural England half of them don't contain components of any modern language and nobody actually knows why they're called what they are.

>>49728959
Everything that isn't the Sword Coast may as well not exist to me.

>>49736411
>>49736419
Wow, I had a feeling you were stupid, but this is impressive.

Your post can be summarized with "I'm struggling to find reasons to dislike it."

You go back and forth, complaining about anything and everything you can, even if you're forced to contradict yourself, and still your only complaints are vague, jumbled ideas that read like someone who thinks all of Faerun is Elminster.

>There is no sense of danger in FR, no thrill

I'm impressed you can say stuff like this with a straight face. In general, I don't know who you are, but I'd very much like to see you with a tripcode, because it's clear that you're just a bundle of blind hatred, and people should be warned about you before they ever take anything you say seriously.

>>49737110
Prove me wrong anywhere faggot. Or show me where I contradict myself. Only contradiction you managed to point out I already stated to be bullshit.

>I'm impressed you can say stuff like this with a straight face
Well, if you feel any sense of danger from pathetic villains of forgotten realms, I can only feel pity for you.

Oh, and I'm not even close to complaining about EVERYTHING that is wrong with this setting, just the most general stuff.

>vague, jumbled ideas that read like someone who thinks all of Faerun is Elminster.
I don't know what is "vague" in statement that various parts of FR contradict themselves or grind against each other, sometimes just badly camouflaged by deus ex machinas, failing to support any sense of believability. Well, it might be hard to spot for an ignorant fuck that can't really see it because he don't even vaguely know shit about how real world history/anthropology or actually decently concieved fictional settings work, but again, your problem, not mine.

>>49728959
Dislike.

>>49736419
>Baddies all feel like moustache-twirling saturday morning cartoon villains.
If you're referring to the Zhentarim and so on, that's actually deliberate. In the wake of the "D&D is Satan" controversy in America, TSR actually implemented a rule that "Bad Guys" were NEVER allowed to prosper or otherwise win.

They lose because America.

The only part of FR that I like is Netheril

Love it. FR writing is generraly very good, from the TSR days (I still cherish anything by Elaine Cunningham) to the more recent stuff (For example anyone who took part in The sundering, esp. Erin m. Evans and Paul s. Kemp). Literally the only thing I dislike is the purple prose some writiers use, i.e RAS when writing first-person Drizzt and in the three Drizzt prequel novels.

>>49737250
> Or show me where I contradict myself

Easy.
>Lot of ridiculous over-the top things automatically make things interesting and un-bland.

Hyperbole in of itself, and that's assuming that Faerun has a lot of ridiculous over-the-top things, when they're actually rather rare in the grand scheme of things.

I'm sorry, but if you think you've said anything worth arguing against, you're too stupid to even talk to. A couple of vague opinions are hardly worth discussing, especially when each of them can be torn asunder with a simple "I disagree" or "Provide some examples".

Now, be a good little troll, and put on a trip so you can warn people not to actually bother arguing with you.

>>49737288
The recent work with Netheril/Shade and Shar is actually scary and tense.

>>49737343
... oh, you're THAT level of stupid?

>Lot of ridiculous over-the top things automatically make things interesting and un-bland
Yes, thats an contradiction. But you know what else it is? My paraphrase of your own statement, shown as example of why your "contradictions" aren't really contradictions. So you're the one that's contradicting yourself, mate. And you pointed it out yourself.

>they're actually rather rare in the grand scheme of things
Compared to what other setting? Of course you can't say, because your precious FR is all you know.

>A couple of vague opinions are hardly worth discussing, especially when each of them can be torn asunder with a simple "I disagree"
Same could be said about your posts. You throw tantrums because someone disrespects your precious little world, yet all you tears mean so little.

>>49737288
It doesn't matter why it's bad, it's still bad.

>>49737489
Yeah, Shades are actually a good theme. Too bad it sinks in a sea of crap.

>>49737489
>Netheril/Shade and Shar
You mean edge mcedgelord. Shittiest plotline in several years.

>>49737669
I'm sorry, but there's still no examples coming from you, just more vague "I only know about Elminster" opinions.

And, if you call me calling you a dumb troll a tantrum, we need a new word for whatever it is you're doing. Get a trip before you hurt yourself, because you seem like one of those guys who wastes hours spamming his dumb opinions whenever someone calls him out on being an idiot. A trip would just let people ignore you, saving you and them time. Everyone wins.

Also, quick reminder that you still need to provide some examples if you don't want your opinions to be disregarded as vague and silly opinions from someone who doesn't know anything about the setting.

>>49728959
Remove drizzt.
Remove drow.

Then, the setting is okay/10.

Why are they forgotten?

>>49738506
Because they're not worth remembering.

>>49737776
>calling you a dumb troll a tantrum
yeah, because getting crybaby-defensive because someone disregards your shitty setting totally isn't what tantrum is. kek. If my opinion is so worthless why you respond to my every post, crying for my amusement.

>provide some examples
Look, I'm here to state my opinions and not try to convince everyone, and especially not a shortsighted, ignorant fanboy who is not able to see flaws of his shitty setting because he knows nothing better. It's your problem, if you like to eat shit, eat it, I won't gonna stop you. But the other way, you can't stop me from looking down at you and chuckling at your pleb tastes and stupidity.

>if you don't want your opinions to be disregarded
Because I give a fuck if my opinions are disregarded by dense fanboy, yeah

>someone who doesn't know anything about the setting
>implying
I played for years on various MUDs and nwn/nwn2 PWs set in FR, because there was still nothing better available in terms of daily online RP (And in my teens I actually used to like this setting, being dumb as teens usually are). I even DMed on one for about a year. There are chances that I know more about your shitty world of choice that you do, believe me or not.
I met fuckton of fanboys like you during that time, so well, I know your kind. But don't worry, you still manage to be "special". Know why? Because you represent the rare, lowest tier of FR fanboy hierarchy. Because you are too dumb to even see it's flaws. There are people who see them but are in denial, there are people who see them but don't care or even don't consider them as flaws, there are people who try to throw shitty justifications. You're worse than all of those. Because they just have shit taste or are delusional, while you are plainly dumb.

>>49739193
But like for real though. Who forgot them? Why that name?

>>49739424

>Because I give a fuck if my opinions are disregarded by dense fanboy, yeah

Do you honestly think anyone gives a fuck about the opinions of a dense hater?

No one said FR doesn't have flaws, but you really didn't mention any of them. You kind of just went on a tantrum of vague opinions, most of which are not even close to accurate, and you still have yet to provide any examples of your bizarre opinions.

So, yeah. You're kind of a dumb troll, and it's nice to know that you can be triggered to produce a lengthy but hollow response.

Waiting for your next one, since you're not going to be able to produce any examples for your silly and empty opinions.

And get a trip.

>>49739652
I'll mention a few niggling issues. Different anon.

First, a lot of characters wind up with the same "voice" in fiction (it's more difficult to seperate novels from game books with FR, because one influences the other), particularly with Ed Greenwood's writing. For example, with a lot of the characters in "Elminster in Myth Drannor" you could sub out their lines for characters in "Elminster's Daughter" without much trouble. Generally the same old, same old. "For love of Cormanthor/Cormyr", "ah but the realm is in danger", and other such conversational topics. Some of them read as though they've been copied verbatim. He has gotten better about this over the years, I don't think I remember reading it in Spellstorm, and there were only a couple occurrences in Death Masks.

Other authors don't have this (one area where multiple authors is a good thing). Although I have my own pet peeves with them as well. Salvatore, for example, completely refuses to acknowledge that any drow deity besides Lolth exists.

Proliferation of characters and locations. FR benefits from a massive amount of detail. You can basically point at a random spot on a map and immediately find out what's there, power players, potential plot threads for player characters, and more general and daily life stuff than you could ever need. This is great for some DMs, bad for others who like to make up their own stuff.

They blew up Halruaa because they couldn't deal with it existing, then put Shade into FR instead because... they could deal with it? Now Shade is gone and Halruaa is coming back. Either way, the Shade plotline was always kind of shit.

Cormyr somehow has more written about it than almost anything else, and yet nobody wants to go near it in most sourcebooks, instead we get the Sword Coast or the North. The last one it had was somewhere in the 90s, I think?

Some scattered thoughts. Mostly minor, but some niggling issues.

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>>49739652
>Throwing a projection-fest post as soon as you notice talking bad about your setting in ways you just can't get
>Being that stupid that you are able to try to use sarcastic paraphase of your own statement against meand not even realizing this
>Over half of responses is monkeying my statements against without even trying to adjust them
>Other half is murmuring about "vague" and "inaccurate" opinions well, generalized opinions covering several different aspects of the setting that are meant to state the opinion and not analyze/discuss setting, no shit sherlock. Assesing accuracy is efectively blocked by wall of tour idiocy
>GETA TRIP GET A TRIP U TROLL

yess.,. yess... it is me here who is butthurt and dense. totally. yeah

And a little redpill for you
"bizarre" "opinions of dense haters" are nothing but another fragment of your ignorance. Little bit of news for you. Not a single one of this opinions is just my own. FR has as many "haters" as fanboys, if not more. It may be still "the most popular by the virtue that people who dislike it don't all flock into being fanboys of single another setting (wow, what a surprise, isn't it?), but that doesn't mean there aren't fuckton of people who more or less share my opinions and they aren't often discussed in many places. But yeah, shield your love to the shitty world with projections that only small bunch of "trolls" dislike it if it makes you feel secure.

>>49739859
If we want to talk issues, I've got a bag full of them myself (Thay being a particularly sore topic, because writers often go in the worst direction with what should be a great idea), but the key thing is that the other anon is just sort of flailing about, running his mouth, and hoping people will take him seriously when he's just sort of vaguely struggling to complain for the sake of complaining.

> You can basically point at a random spot on a map and immediately find out what's there, power players, potential plot threads for player characters, and more general and daily life stuff than you could ever need.

This, for example, directly contradicts several of the points he tried to make. But, then again, he also happened to contradict himself rather often, so that's no big shock.

>>49739984
So, yeah. You're kind of a dumb troll, and it's nice to know that you can be triggered to produce a lengthy but hollow response.
Waiting for your next one, since you're not going to be able to produce any examples for your silly and empty opinions.

And get a trip.

>>49739520
In the older FR lore, it was implied that there was once a vast network of earth-like worlds connected via gateways and planes. Abeir-Toril was one of them, and sometime after biblical days the gateways got severed, our world having "Forgotten" about the old world it was once connected to. Presumably the severance is why magic doesn't exist in our world.

Also in that older lore it was established that everything we read/know about the FR is from the perspective of the mages that have found ways to reopen those portals, which is why a lot of sources are biased in favor of Elminster and his friends, since Elminster is the first mage to do so.

>>49739998
>This, for example, directly contradicts several of the points he tried to make
Which ones? I don't se any. Guess that's because you made another bunch of dumb, nonsensical connections between unrelated aspects, like with riddiculousness and blandness before.

>contradict himself rather often
And yet you fail to point out a single contradiction without failing so hard that it's basically shooting yourself in the knee.

>>49740079
So, yeah. You're kind of a dumb troll, and it's nice to know that you can be triggered to produce a lengthy but hollow response.
Waiting for your next one, since you're not going to be able to produce any examples for your silly and empty opinions.

And get a trip.

My DM presented us an opportunity to kill Drizzt. We didn't take it though.

I really wanted to...

We also met Elminster for no reason.

Other than that its been a fine enough generic fantasy setting

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>>49740097

>>49740174
Nice example to help support your hot opinions.

Get a trip.

>>49735731
It's earth you dumbass

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>>49740288

>>49729085
I still refuse to move on from AD&D FR.

>>49728959
I've grown to like it. But I've come to DM it in a whole different way to what would you expect in the novels and other video games.

It's true FR has an absurd power-level, even minor characters from non-classic novels are extremely powerful characters that could shape the whole world and yet they don't so. That's pretty dumb, imo. But since 5e happens centuries after the Spellplague, you can actually ignore that shit and just go with the official canon you're particularly fond of.

>>49728959
I built my world by deconstructing FR.
Kinda like it for being a good generic base to build off of.

Why I started using hombrew based off of FR instead of FR itself:
>Who is this Vecna guy, why do all your starting characters have his body parts, and how many hands and eyes did he frigging have?

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>>49735351
Enjoy your stale fantasy settings perpetually trapped in medieval stasis for no reason other than "i haet gun".

Back in the 90s, over a number of years I played with Ed Greenwood as the GM at a small city Ontario gaming convention. Funny guy, great GM if a bit dirty minded. Still his novels were crap compared to his short stories, adventures and background material. That's because the novel line was edited to death and in later years, particularly after Lorraine Williams (TSR's later owner before WoTC bought her out) was out of it, they improved drastically.

Anyhow FR is okay. It's not perfect, but what setting is?

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>>49741609
What if the medieval fantasy setting is what I enjoy?

And why stop at guns? Why not lasers and space ships and ... oh... theres already a campaign setting for that.

>>49735337
>2E Realms talks about how guns are new
>2E Realms has 2 or 3 kits dedicated to gun use
>2E Realms has a timeline explaining how guns will become more common and define wars, with implications that some nations are already investing in them and artillery pieces
>3E Realms retcons everything about this

>>49741609
Seriously. Your argument is that no setting can be historically based. So why aren't all settings modern?

I like the fuckhuge pantheon.

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>>49741720
I love being a lawful asshole paladin of red knight.

>>49741687
I think his argument is that medieval settings are overly represented in most rpgs. There aren't many napoleonic settings, or post-industrial, or any of the other time periods that could potentially be an interesting place to have adventures in.
>>49741609
And to you, I'd argue that most people are kind of familiar with medieval settings, which makes it easy to get into and roleplay in, not just because guns r bad. It sucks to make your players take a history lesson to get them accustomed to the time period.

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>>49741654
Spelljammer is more like "fantasy in magic outer space", and I don't recall it having actual sci-fi technology or firearms (i.e. powered by science, not magic).

>>49741687
What? No, that wasn't an argument, it was a kneejerk reaction to a kneejerk statement, not a coherent statement of opinion. Isn't that what you normally do on /tg/?

>>49741766
Seriously though, I don't get why people get instantly triggered the minute firearms appears in a setting. There's having a preference of genre (like, I wouldn't want guns to be in Dark Sun or Eberron, for very different reasons), then there's the retarded notion that firearms somehow don't "belong" in any fantasy at all.

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>>49741832
Spelljammer had firearms

>>49741654
>And why stop at guns? Why not lasers and space ships
I mean, there's a pretty vast stretch pf history that existed where we had guns but not laser guns and spaceships or even the CONCEPT of laser guns and space ships.
>>49741832
>I wouldn't want guns to be in Dark Sun or Eberron
Dark Sun I get 100%, but if there's any D&D setting aside from Spelljammer that I can see guns fitting into. It's Eberron.

FR doesn't try to reinvent the wheel. It's a normal-ass fantasy setting for people who want that. It has as much lore as you'd ever want or need and then some, but none of it is trying to be contrary for its own sake, and you have to give it credit for that.

What I like about FR circa 5e is how it's the first "default setting" since 2e that it's actually possible to play in. 3e had Greyhawk as its default setting but never told you more about Greyhawk than the list of deities in the PHB. 4e invented its own setting but once again never gave you enough information to actually use it. They never even named it - "Points of Light" is a fan-made name based on an old online article about designing 4e. Now in 5e you can finally read the SCAG and understand the basics of the setting you're expected to play in without tracking down a thirty-year-old box set.

>>49732228
>>49732975
To be fair, even Wizards is pretending like 4e never happened. All the dead gods are back, the geography is mostly back to normal, dragonborn are a dwindling remnant and tieflings have variety again.

It's boring and incredibly generic kitchen sink fantasy land.

I guess it's okay if you can't come up with anything decent on your own.

it's bad cuz it's dnd and people don't want to play my original homebrew where dwarves are 50 ft tall aquatic centaurs based on medieval azerbaijan instead :'(

>>49736105
Gleep Wurp the Eye-biter

>>49728959
>1e Forgotten Realms
Love it, pretty cool setting, love the undiscovered aspects of it, also find a lot of the implications cool. The fact the Netheril stuff makes the setting sound kind of post-apocalyptic is pretty weird but opens up a lot of discovery ideas! Also I wonder if they'll do anything with that throw away line about the !egyptians discovering a steam engine...

>2e Forgotten Realms
Wow that's a lot of fluff, also wtf is with these novel references appearing all over the place? At conventions everyone was talking about how they love FR for not being another novel setting like Dragonlance. At least there are still some good setting books, and the Volo's Guides are fun with their weird conspiracies. Also that guy who wrote the Netheril books can go fuck himself with a rusty spoon and I hope he never gets work again. At least there are guns now, and the printing press is becoming a thing, and from the way it sounds the next fast forward in the setting is going to be more industrial age.

>3e Forgotten Realms
Wait where did the guns go? And why is it Loviatar worship is suddenly outlawed instead of some stuff that hedonistic nobles partake in? Why did references to Sharess vanish and suddenly Sune and Lathanders churches got toned down? Shar is even more LULZEVIL than 2e made her, and Thay... fucking hell it's like they took all of the bad novel ideas on the evil factions and made them 100% canon. AND THE HARPERS ARE ACCEPTED AS JUST GENERAL GOOD GUYS NOW? WHAT THE FUCK? THEY WERE A BUNCH OF ANARCHISTS WHO GLADLY COMMIT ACTS OF TERRORISM TO FURTHER THEIR CAUSE! Fuck WotC for babbyfying the setting!

>4e Forgotten Realms
Yeah, I'm out.

>5e Forgotten Realms
Oh look they retconned 4e, I don't really care though because my group still uses the 1e and some 2e books whenever we play a Realms game.

Ignoring the shitstorm, can anyone tell me more about the events of the time of troubles? I've had a lot of difficulty finding concrete info. Which is a problem since I'm running a divinity usurpation game.

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>>49744073
There's a whole wiki for this shit:
http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Time_of_Troubles

>>49728959
It's the best setting followed by Dark Sun which is followed by Eberron. Dragonlance fucking SUCKS.

>>49743294
Wait, did I write this?

>>49728959
As objectively not great as I know it is, it will always have a special place in my heart and conjure up positive memories because it's the setting that introduced me to roleplaying games.

It's like your rattletrap first car. It's rusty, clunky, terribly outdated and wasn't that great when it was brand new, but no slick objectively better car you ever own will feel quite the same as the first one that gave you the taste of something new and changed your life forever.

>>49728959
I prefer Dragonlance but FR is a workable, though by no means good fantasy setting. You just have to find the setting-within-a-setting. This is a place where you can fully use the options in the PHB while maintaining a consistent theme. In FR, these are...

>Cormyr
>The Silver Marches
>The Dalelands
>The Moonshae Islands

These allow you to conceivably have a dwarf, elf or whatever and still let them have a greater community to return to.

>But what about the Sword C-

Fuck you, no. You don't want that. No! JUST NO!

Everywhere else is a place that they can go but not return to.

>>49732228
i liked it because it killed of all the metaplot and the characters who were part of it.

>>49728959
Ruined since 4e.

What's a good Forgotten Realms book to read?

>Waterdeep
Oh thank goodness, I managed to avoid drowning, thanks to CAPTAIN FUCKING OBVIOUS.

>>49729017
>tfw I like most of the cliches in that map ironically

>>49747424
But 4e literally was metaplot that introduced a big plotline about how we gotta get these super special awesome NPCs to save the multiverse.

WotC had a lot of original fuck ups, but they perfectly copied TSR in terms of how to fuck up settings with stupid metaplots.

>>49748209
That depends on what you want.
If you want just a feel for the setting try to find Greenwood's short stories. His best writing is in short story form, even he himself admits that, particularly because he doesn't like writing for big named characters or huge world changing plots, since he sees those as more things for players to figure out.
But his contracts with TSR forced him into otherwise.

That said, if you just want to be one of the many people who talk about the FR as a book setting as opposed to a game setting, look up one of the early drizzt books, the war of the spiderqueen, or any of Elaine Cunningham's stuff, or alternatively just some random harper books there are a few decent ones.

>>49748303
Don't you mean Nimoar's Hold?

>>49728959
Rather fond of it but ever since WotC got ahold of it it sort of gradually got watered down.

>>49735639
For some reason this map always gets my imagination going.

>>49745547
There are many like us, even if we are easily outnumbered by the ones who proclaim 3e as the best.

>>49748209
"Best of the Realms" books and "Realms of X" books. They're a bunch of short story collections.

There's also the Wizards quartet (each book is different and focuses on a different person), and the original Icewind Dale trilogy.

If you want generic fantasy, Greyhawk is better. If you want high fantasy kitchen sink, Eberron is better. Reiterating from what I said in a different said, I don't dislike FR on principle, but so much about it seems like the epitome of bland, self-involved, slightly twee 80's fantasy. The kind of setting where you have elves unironically named things like "Lady Althiallyn Starwillow."

>>49742111
See, I fucking hate that because it assumes I care about FR and want to play in that setting when in fact I'd rather just pretend it doesn't exist. But WotC is adamant in shoving Forgotten fucking Realms down my throat at nearly every opportunity because it has the most vocal fans willing to shell out cash for mediocre splatbooks and novelized accounts of Ed Greenwood's literal jerkoff fantasies.

As much as generic settings can get boring, i find settings that try too hard to be different just as annoying.

Are there any settings that have thought out historical impetus, i'd kind of like to start planning a session say 500 years before the era where its supposed to be playable. chart linages, why certain towns flourished and became cities, what trade there is, advancements in magic or technology.

Something like that.

>>49741687
>>49741654
A significant portion of the medieval age had guns in it, retards

>>49749924
>Lady Althiallyn Starwillow

That's Lady Alt'thial'lyn Star*Willow to you, peasant!

>>49749924
>If you want generic fantasy, Greyhawk is better.

In what way? Greyhawk seems like it's exactly like the Realms, except less well developed due to being less popular and so getting less focus.

Plus I prefer the Realms because Greyhawk is overwhelmingly human kingdoms, with nonhumans in a definite state of decline or recession. The Realms by comparison has a large number of strong, even growing, nonhuman realms.

Additionally, everything in the modern Oerth is ultimately the result of two empires clashing a thousand years ago, and the still-ongoing fallout from that. The Realms, by comparison, has a large number of areas with completely distinct histories.

>>49745956
Dalelands is the best.

>>49750249
>i'd kind of like to start planning a session say 500 years before the era where its supposed to be playable. chart linages, why certain towns flourished and became cities, what trade there is, advancements in magic or technology.
You mean fast forward Crusader Kings II and see what happens?

>>49748329

I'm partial to Frozen North tropes myself.

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>>49752609

>>49750973
Not really. The last century or so they had access to cannons and hand cannons.

>>49753587
More like last two or even three centuries. Centuries, which coincidentally, also are the ones that people actually think of when they heard word "medieval"
Because earlier there were not only no guns, but also no plate armor, two-handed swords, joust tournaments, halberds and many other "iconic medieval stuff". Many other of this stuff, while existed, were relatively rare and not fully developed, like gothic architecture and art, coats of arms,
TL;DR. For average guy medieval = late medieval, and whole duration of late medieval, no matter which definition you'll choose, had guns.
Moreover, FR is even more tilted forward towards renaissance, actually.

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>>49728959
I prefer Greyhawk, I think it feels much more alive, and the history of the setting is more convincing

Adding the Dragonborn and steam punk shit ruined the setting for me.

>>49753720
Ruined forgotten realms, that is

>>49753720

Dragonborn still strike me as the ultimate example of unnecessary world building.

>>49736746
>At least "field" is an actual word.
Uh, so is lich. Not just in the D&D sense.

>>49736642
The anon you were replying to was talking about the map for the Pathfinder campaign setting. An edited version of its map was included with the post he was replying to. The setting is filled with blatant fantasy equivalents.

>not!Ancient Egypt
>not!America
>not!Revolutionary France
>not!Arabia
etc.

>>49729017
Places usually have unique names. Okay, not unique, because the world is a really big place and you'll often find multiple places with the same name--or with "new" stuck in front of it--but I don't think you're complaining because there isn't both an Amn and a New Amn.

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>>49733038
>applying that pic to place names
Earthsea wants you to shut your whore mouth.

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>>49733038
>>49755019
Also, Dune.

>>49748329
I honestly like a lot of fantasy cliches. The problem is that writers who use cliches tend to be bad to mediocre.

I'd read the shit out of a "chosen one finds magic sword and kills BBEG" story if the plot was good, tension keeps high throughout and the characterization is on point.

Take ASOIAF for example, it's actually filled with cliches. Jon Snow is the extremely generic young orphan who is secretly royalty and has thick plot armor. But it works well as a story.

>>49754839
>because there isn't both an Amn and a New Amn.
Clearly someone doesn't know about the Maztican colonies

>>49749996
The edition isn't nailed to the setting as firmly as 4e and 3e were. The core books are entirely setting-neutral, which hasn't been the case since, what, AD&D?

The fact is, FR makes the most sense to use as a baseline D&D settings because all the other options are either half-baked (Greyhawk, Points of Light) or variations that fill a niche for some players but have shit that most people don't want in their D&D (Dragonlance, Eberron, Dark Sun, etc.)

>>49728959

There is an incredible overabundance of written material to draw from, and since nearly all D&D video games take place there (including every single D&D game that's had any staying power at all), it's also the setting that most players are likely to be at all familiar with. In the Forgotten Realms, I can create a character from Phlan or Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter and I know that city well enough to actually portray someone who is from there and knows that the city of Phlan has docks, a Temple of Bane, that the main market is called Podol Plaza, that the lord's castle is called Valjevo Castle, that it's protected by Stojanow Gate, that Thorn Island out in the bay has Sokol Keep as a lighthouse, that Valhingen Graveyard is just outside town. That's enough detail that I can seem like an actual local when we're in the area because of how well I know the place. I don't have to ask the DM what I know about my own neighborhood. I already know that shit. All I had to do to get that knowledge was play video games.

Since those video games were really popular, when I DM in the Forgotten Realms I can plausibly expect about half of my group to have that kind of knowledge. Additionally, it's had decades of strong support adding insane amounts of detail to the setting, so with a trove of pirated .pdfs I can easily roll with the punches if my players decide to wander off the rails. Not only that, because that knowledge is easily available to both sides of the screen, my players can decide to go overthrow Mulmaster or something without my having to make that an explicit plot hook, and there is an entire city of Mulmaster with pages of information for me to run that requires nothing but a five minute break for some quick reading to prepare.

It's got plenty of drawbacks, but I'm running out of space, so I'll make a second post.

>>49756613
That's a good point: FR is a common frame of reference for all roleplayers. Though that is becoming less so with the proliferation of video games that aren't tied to tabletop RPGs at all.

I'm not sure that many current roleplayers played or know about the Gold Box games anyway.

>>49756613
>cont.

Forgotten Realms is a 70s (and a little bit into the 80s) setting with expansion material that fleshed out lots of areas but did little to add anything new to them, and it shows. It's drowning in poorly copied Tolkien concepts that were rapidly going stale at the time of release and have not aged any better in the subsequent four decades. The sheer number of people working on it means that it is incredibly well-detailed, but the double-edged sword of that is that quality trends towards mediocrity as the contributions of brilliant designers get smoothed over by the sea of unexceptional ones working alongside them. No region in the Realms is especially well-executed because all of them have been dabbled in by at least two or three people who didn't directly communicate and no more than one of whom was really good at worldbuilding - not to mention they're still working from a foundation of Tolkien being copied by someone who had no understanding of what made Tolkien work, and when your overview is "swamp full of orcs and ogres" there's only so much you can do to make Thar interesting before the stuff you've added comes to overshadow the overview you were given - and you can't do that, because the overview is already published and canon and was probably written by Ed Greenwood, whom FR fans fucking worship. Greenwood isn't a terrible designer, but he does in fact fuck up sometimes, and FR fans throwing a shitfit at the idea of someone else cleaning up Greenwood's messes is probably a contributor to why it remains a decent but not great setting.

Fuck, this is turning into an essay. I'll need a third post to cover Elminster.

>>49729017
>muh gibberish names
Most real world cities and towns sound like gibberish

>>49748209
Moonshae Isles books I thought were well written. Also, anything Richard Byers writes

>>49740059
Thank you very much! I think that's really cool

>>49757004

People hate Elminster and for very good reason. He's a Gary Stu super-wizard, and while Greenwood had the presence of mind to design Elminster such that he wouldn't overshadow the players, he wasn't able to reign in his ego-trip long enough to work out an actually good reason. Rather than actually giving Elminster limited powers such that in-setting threats could plausibly be beyond his ability to confront and a party of six high-level player characters could plausibly be more effective than him in combating them, Elminster instead just doesn't save the world sometimes for no reason at all. In fact, sometimes he'll play the role of quest ATM and tell the players to go and solve a problem he is personally capable of solving himself in an afternoon, but instead of doing that, he will tell other people to risk their lives doing it while he goes home to read a goddamn book. Being important only by virtue of the fact that the author avatar can't be fucked to take care of the issue makes the problem of insignificant players /worse/, not better. It's all the disempowerment of playing in a setting with an active and aligned character who is powerful enough to make your contributions pointless with the added condescension of that character unloading his shit onto you so that you can pretend you're important. You can solve this problem by just not having Elminster show up, but FR fluff sure as Hell doesn't encourage this, since they tend to slather Elminster all over everything (especially in 1e or 2e products which were, other than the Elminster overabundance, the best time for FR).

Jesus, still not done. Home stretch, though.

>>49740059
Is that why the Wiki's are written in past tense?

>>49757149

Finally, the setting is bigger than anyone cares to actually sustain and it shows. The actually usable parts of the setting are from Baldur's Gate over to Sembia and up to Icewind Dale, including Anauroch and the Moonsea and stuff, and then also down along the Sword Coast to Calimshan (but *not* including places south of Cormyr/Sembia) and one more island of relevance out in Thay. Everywhere else, about half the map, may as well not exist. Some of those places have really cool concepts (most notably Halruaa), but the fluff for them basically doesn't exist past basic overview stuff and WotC (and TSR before them) have very clearly demonstrated that they're more interested in continuing to flesh out and advance the timeline in their A-list Sword Coast locations, with occasional detours to their B-list of Cormyr, Amn, the Moonsea, etc., and almost nothing on Chessenta or Impiltur or Dambrath or wherever. The 2-3 paragraph overviews given by the SCAG likely represent the entirety of what the less popular half of Faerun will get in 5e. Contrast the Moonsea, where every single city could reasonably play host to a series of adventures that could take you through at least two, and probably three tiers of a 5e game. There's enough material to have an entire campaign take place just in Phlan, Melvaunt, and their outlying regions, and you'd still have Zhentil Keep, Hillsfar, and Mulmaster left over in that general area - a solid two campaign's worth of content. Meanwhile there's barely enough written up about Dambrath to sustain /one adventure/. At that point, why have those sections of the map even exist?

>fin

>>49757152
Presumably, but I don't work on the wiki so I couldn't tell you much about it.

>>49757149
I wish your points didn't stick as much as they do, particularly because knowing the production history of FR and Greenwood's own discussions on the matter of characters like Elminster and building a world, it's clear it shouldn't be the mess that it has become. But I guess that's the weakness of working for big companies and having requirements on publications.

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>>49757281
>the setting is bigger than anyone cares to actually sustain
Yeah I mean pic related is the most anyone cares to go into and is primarily what Wizards uses in adventures and source books

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>>49757686
But the actual map ends up looking something like this
Filled with barely mentioned locations and devoid of detail

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Is there any podcast that talks about Realms lore?
I could use an overview I can passively absorb while doing other stuff.

>>49757686

It's an overstatement even to say that WotC uses all of Faerun. When's the last time Luiren or the Shaar got any attention that wasn't a handful of paragraphs of broad overview? Is there a single adventure module, video game, or novel set in them? How many plot hooks do the two of them have, in all of FR setting books put together? Is it enough for even an abbreviated, one-tier campaign? There are parts of Faerun so neglected that I've seriously considered taking some of my homebrew setting adventures, scrubbing the names off so they take place in the Border Kingdoms or wherever, and putting them on the DM's Guild. If I claim that Waterdeep is an overpopulated megacity with fantasy Judge Dredd barely keeping order, WotC will probably correctly identify this as a non-FR adventure after a half-assed conversion. Maarlith, though? That shit shows up on the map (it's in Dambrath) but it doesn't even have a wiki page. You could also put it in Halarahh and claim that it's gotten bigger while it was phased into another dimension - no one would care that you're writing a huge chunk of lore for Faerun's 15th century. I've seriously considered actually trying this. Only barrier so far has been that formatting my notes up to look like an actual product that other people can use is a bitch and it would probably only make me like $40, so I'm not sure it's worth the effort.

>>49757686
You forgot that that map is the setting after mysteriously shrinking a great deal, with cities and locations moved dozens of MILES away from where they originally were relative to nearby landmarks to the point that many cities and towns no longer make sense in placement.

And as >>49757706 points out, when you use all of Abeir Toril as established by late 2e, it gets even worse.
Faerun was originally written as a setting where only a few places were defined, and the places that were defined were defined by people with biases. (Elminster's Ecologies are a grand example). Everywhere else was supposed to be open to the imagination with what little information you had on them, by making the setting ever bigger in every game/new-setting/etc it just got worse and worse.

>>49728959
As far generic kitchen sink settings go, it's actually pretty good. Sure, it's not very original (for the most part; there are moments of inspiration amongst the aping of Tolkien and other fantasy luminaries), but it has a certain fun, oldschool charm to it, and it gives you such a wide of variety of areas that your group IS bound to find at least one country or region of Faerun that is worth a campaign or two.

Setting quality depends considerably on the edition, BTW. Also, while a lot of the Realms are fun and cool place, 95% of the big name NPCs are awful and Greenwood should be ashamed that he allowed them to dominate the setting so much.

>>49728997
Love you.

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>>49735891
Is the sword coast a fun place for adventures?
Why do all the video games take place there anyway?

>>49762510
It has to do with some of the older lore being written from the perspective of people either from Cormyr, the heartlands, or the Dalelands.
As a result, the sword coast was initially listed as a wild and untamed land where a few famous places existed (Candlekeep, Baldur's Gate), but most of it was territory that would change control every generation or every other generation due to the fact people who might as well be mercenaries or bandit leaders would just up and declare themselves Baron and start settlements along the coast, only to get driven out by the next asshole with an army who wants fertile land.
Also I seem to recall a line about how the sword coast will never get full definitions to keep up this concept of it being wild/untamed and unknown to the average man, but we saw how long that lasted.

This makes it very easy to use for video games where you're making up loads of shit anyway.

>>49752609
I STRONGLY prefer the Silver Marches because it has that "Germanic Frontier" Feel and avoids the made up name feeling of lots of the FR. I feel that a lot of those places are simply set dressing and made to be visited rather than have a campaign set there.

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>>49763336
>how the sword coast will never get full definitions

That was Sembia, plus a few other places. The old grey box has a list of them, and they broke each and every one of them.

>mercenaries or bandit leaders would just up and declare themselves Baron

And this was the area around the Lake of Steam, not the Sword Coast.

>>49755348
But it sucks. Jon and Derpneris are shit characters, Drizzts of i-phone generation.

>>49739984
>>49739652

You both look like fucking morons, regardless of what your opinions are. Get a fucking grip on reality.

On topic, FR is alright, I can understand why kitchen sink settings can cause problems as the large scale stuff can't quite hit as hard, but at least the massive amount that's happened there means it has a rich and interconnected history so dense that it could be a comic book universe. Makes it feel more whole than some settings, though there's plenty of geographical and culture issues that always arise from these kinds of settings.

>>49741720
pantheon containes some of the biggest pricks or the dumbest cunts in any setting. Possibly because some or most happen to be mortal once and are trying to get comfy with their new job or simply love being a fucking prick like Myrkul.

Semi-related, sounds like a stupid question but how does Ao measure up with the Lady of Pain? As in, they're both used as a Game Over rule for DMs and canonically speaking but are they like primordial beings seeing that nothing can ever challenge them and walk out alive?

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>>49728959
>Not including the best part of the setting

Whats wrong with you anon

>>49767672
>methwood

Hell of a drug.

>>49768291
>BEST
>PART
>OF THE
>SETTING

>>49768349
>>49768291
>>49767672
Er... Can we NOT go to Methwood?

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>>49768406

But anon........

according to the map.......

we entered Methwood.........

5 hours ago!

*faint floridaman screeching in the distance*

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>>49768291
There are angels there...

>>49767426
Ao is presumably the end all be all of Realmspace and its linked planes, just as LoP is for Sigil. Given that both are tied metaphysically to their respective realms, who knows how they function outside of them.

>>49757912
Who colored in that big Australia landmass? What goes on there? Poo in loos? Abos? Big dead magic area?

>>49769640
Probably some random asshole who wanted to feel special, given last I heard even Greenwood said he has no idea what that place is.
But then again a lot of the Realms was stuff other writers wrote and TSR just said "This is now Realms, kthx."

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>>49767672

>>49748594
Ditto. It's a parody, but a good parody. I wouldn't mind adventuring in that world!

I like having FR around. Sure, it's very generic, but it's got pretty much everything you need and you can have fun playing in FR, lots of material available while still having some (though not awful much in some cases) room for your own flavour.
It all depends on preferences really. OBVIOUSLY it's not something if you want to run your own thing, but if a pre-made setting with lots of history beforehand is what you need and it doesn't have to be specific, FR works.

>>49769738
The problem is that they needed to fill space when making the CD-ROM atlas. Since Toril is an "E-size" world, they assume it's exactly the size of Earth and thus must have its approximate land mass distribution.

Then some guy goes the extra step and starts filling in the big continent with stuff. As Elminster once said, creative cartographers are fags (Polyhedron Newszine, The Everwinking Eye, speaking on 'Sevone" vs. Selvessone)..

>>49769769
>the Horde

Mah anda. One of the best boxes TSR published for the Realms.