it is genuinely wild how much Faerun content I've enjoyed - like, hundreds of hours of BG1, 2 and 3, Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2, Icewind Dale 1 and 2, I've *beaten* most of these games and I can't tell you a SINGLE thing about this setting
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I see the Forgotten Realms as the unflavored part of jello, being able to be flavored and molded into many shapes but on its own not something you’d want to eat.
All of those games never try to explain the setting. There is an assumption that you would have previous knowledge on the setting. But games like Dragon Age try its best to get you to understand the setting. It concepts and terminology.
Its definitely a fault of those games and not the players.
It’s… basically just generic high fantasy in most ways, even moreso than Gygax’s old Greyhawk setting. So the central theme of the setting is to have no central theme. Not like say, Pillars of Eternity’s setting. Or even Eberron.
It is kind of amazing how uninspired it really is. But then most settings are *about* the setting where Forgotten Realms is just about whatever story you're telling. It's all backdrop.
There's a town here with 8 pages of lore if you want it. It probably has a dumb name.
My understanding is they basically just wanted exactly that, but didn't want to pay for Greyhawk, so they just rebooted as Forgotten Realms and called it a day.
I grew up reading the novels, playing even older videogames, and playing AD&D every weekend so it's seared in my brain and is very cozy to me... But yeah, it's very much everything mashed into one setting.
my top 3 faerun facts (as someone who actually likes it):
1. the drow pantheon has a slime god in it who is probably older than any other entity in the setting and who is never given any particular reason for being part of the drow pantheon.
(cont)
2. it's an isekai setting. the name 'forgotten realms' refers to the fact the whole place is covered in portals, several of which go to earth, and which have been forgotten. the nation of mulhorand is inhabited by regular egyptians, who were kidnapped from earth by wizards via the portals.
(cont)
3. per word of ed greenwood, who has secured a favourable contract with wizards of the coast such that they cannot contradict him on setting worldbuilding, and incest is widespread and normalized among good-aligned nobles.
I think it is my least favourite DnD setting. It has survived for so long and worked well with so many editions because it is frankly uninteresting. An encyclopedic kind of setting, there are lots of things, places and names but the setting itself feels like it has no themes or focus
the kitchen sink nature of it is both a boon and a curse. as you said, its really flat and boring in many regards - but you can basically set ANYTHING in the Realms if you want to, and therefore kind of participate and profit from the large amount of lore while still doing your own insular thing
As someone who has read countless books in the setting and played DnD for years along with all those games this take is wild to me
Such an incredibly rich and deep world with so much character and depth to it, it's wild to spend that much time in it without retaining any of that lol
The awkward thing is, there's a huge amount of world to faerun. They just never show it in the games. We go up and down the sword coast like crazy, but never go meaningfully inland. Do we ever meet the purple dragon nights? Do we ever cross the inland desert? Never, too much is left on the table.
I played all of those games as well and I feel the same way. The Forgotten Realms is basically just a publishing imprint to me, not a unified setting. Each series' respective area is an island of its own receiving bottled messages about the other islands.
I still haven’t beat it, so can’t say whether things change or not in Act 3, but it’s remarkable how much content there is around Shar and how little there is defining who Shar is or what their whole deal is.
It’s obvious they’re “evil” and “dark,” but I couldn’t tell you a thing beyond that.
iirc it's something about how mystras tend to align more with selune than with her and/or a desire to be able to cut people out of magic if they go against her?
(lloth attempts a similar scheme in 4e, which is upon reflection very strange because ao would never allow this kind of thing to succeed)
Yeah as a Pillars fan I can talk at length about the gods in that series
But having played a ton of FR games as well, I don't think I can tell you a single interesting thing about that pantheon, and frankly
I can't remember any of them until a Cleric or Paladin shows up
Based on what I've read, it's a result of TSR (and later WoTC) intentionally genericizing it.
Ed Greenwood created the setting as part of his own writing, then adapted it for his home D&D game, and eventually sold it to TSR. It originally had more character, but TSR could just shove things in /1
e.g. “We need a pirate ship setting; where in the Realms would we find one? Where would Conan-like barbarians come from? Do you have a larger city we could publish?” /2
they keep coming back to faerun because it’s the most known classic kitchen sink setting and im begging for a crumb of the others. planescape has one of the great rpgs of all time, but what about athas? what about eberron? hell, why not spelljammer!
They do! There are multiple elven enclaves. 4e did its best w/ this w/ revived Myth Drannor & High Elves trying to push for a revival, Drow in the Underdark, and the pseudo-mutual-aid-society known as the Harpers (which has a lot of half-elves in it).
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Its definitely a fault of those games and not the players.
There's a town here with 8 pages of lore if you want it. It probably has a dumb name.
1. the drow pantheon has a slime god in it who is probably older than any other entity in the setting and who is never given any particular reason for being part of the drow pantheon.
(cont)
(cont)
It’s kind of just a big setting full of every flavor of fantasy but only the Sword Coast has like ever mattered so people just throw whatever in there
Would love to see a detailed Maztica game.. or Al-Qadim, or Kara-Tur, but there may be royalty issues involved.
Such an incredibly rich and deep world with so much character and depth to it, it's wild to spend that much time in it without retaining any of that lol
I've been engaging with D&D for like, 20 years and could barely tell you anything about them, let alone tell them apart.
Contrast, say, Eberron...
It’s obvious they’re “evil” and “dark,” but I couldn’t tell you a thing beyond that.
(lloth attempts a similar scheme in 4e, which is upon reflection very strange because ao would never allow this kind of thing to succeed)
But having played a ton of FR games as well, I don't think I can tell you a single interesting thing about that pantheon, and frankly
I can't remember any of them until a Cleric or Paladin shows up
The only god I can remember from FR is...Shar? And i think her purview is darkness and secrets. Oh, and Ba'al, the god of murder.
Or as I call them: Uncool Wael and Boring Skaen
Bhaal is into murder
Mystra is magic and loves to fuck really boring wizards for some reason
Lolth is an evil spider goddess and I couldn't fucking remember her name off the top of my head cause that's all I know about her
Ed Greenwood created the setting as part of his own writing, then adapted it for his home D&D game, and eventually sold it to TSR. It originally had more character, but TSR could just shove things in /1
https://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/09/interview-ed-greenwood-part-i.html?m=1