So open couple of questions about #DnD;
1) how stoked are people about the Forgotten Realms? Like, are you delighted by the prospect of serving Lurue, Sune or Sharess against the Zhents or Shadovars in Baldur’s Gate... or are you more “ehhh generic setting with powerful NPCs we can never match”?
2) how do you feel about lycanthropes and vampires in non-Ravenloft-non-gothic D&D?
#ttrpg
@Leucrotta 1) Eh? I mean, if I'd play in it, but not run a game there? I was really into Drizzt when I was in high school, and I love Baldur's Gate out of nostalgia for the games, but other then that I don't see why I'd use it?
@Leucrotta 2) Eh, I mean, why not? The hard part is making them scary instead of just another monster. Vampires you'd have to play smart, and I'd play up the unstoppable curse part of the second, make it much harder then the MM says, and make sure there is VERY limited silver in the area?
@Leucrotta 1) The latter. And just generally too much lore.
2) Eh. Doesn't bother me. Don't seek it out.
@Leucrotta 1) My favorite map of Forgotten Realms is this one: https://www.deviantart.com/sarithus/art/Map-of-Clichea-532220700
Forgotten Realms is as interesting to me as reading the output of a random name generator. Too many names, nothing is new or creative or interesting.
2) I'm all for it. Much more interesting than elves and dwarves. But I'd rather it was a player-specific thing rather than "there is one kingdom of X".
@Leucrotta On the rank of D&D scenarios, Forgotten Realms is on the bottom, together with Dragonlance and Greyhawk (and probably others I don't care either).
I love Planescape. Like Ravenloft and Spelljammer and Birthright. Tolerate Eberron and Dark Sun. And then there is a bunch of micro-scenarios that go from great to bad, and they are all still better than FR because even the bad ones at least are short.
@Leucrotta Hello, had this boosted on my timeline :)
1) personally I hate FR because I'm the kind of person who likes to do deep research and know Every Single Detail of worldbuilding that my PC would possibly know, and FR at this point is such an old, huge, unwieldy and sprawling setting as to make that totally impossible.
2) I'm not personally a fan of the D&D idea of them as always-evil antagonist types but generally speaking I love seeing them in any setting, gothic or not.
@Leucrotta 1) Forgotten Realms is certainly not as played-out to me as Greyhawk was, but it also definitely still feels to me like The Setting Where Ed Greenwood's Characters Go, much like Dragonlance and Weis and the Hickmans. I tend to prefer other settings if I can get them.
2) Perfectly cromulent. 👍