Why does the forgotten realms setting feel like such a cheap caricature

Why do you guys hate warfoged? Not trying to troll or anything just curious.

>Waaaah I hate anything that isn't straight tolkien faggotry

With that out of my syste- No, wait, I feel another one coming on.

>Genuinely hating Warforged

Your opinions are fucking trash, kill yourself.

Because it's robots as a player race. It's as gay as Kendar and Tieflings outside Sigil. I mean why not just roll a dual-wielding Drow, while you're at it, that sodomize yourself with your 3D-printed WoW character's statue?

>Eberron
>Let's just throw a bunch of SUPER COOL AND AWESOME shit into a pot and stir!! That'll make it interesting, right?!
Creatively bankrupt garbage.

>all fantasy should be exactly the same, no deviation allowed
you sound fun

>I will make things up and attribute them to you
Have fun with that. Here's your reply, I guess.

Okay I get that you dislike it, but what makes it "gay"? What about the design of warforged make them a dumb race? Is it just that you don't like players being able to play constructs/robots or is there something more? Once again not trying to shit post or trigger just curious, everyone I know is either indifferent or likes warforged.

I don't understand how people can tolerate the hundreds of differences between different authors Forgotten realms', are the harpers ecoterrorist Luddites or the fucking A-Team?

I dislike races that dictate character. Particularly if they set the player's character up to stand out and be so special solely by that choice. It's the same thing that's retarded and lame about "well my character is part demon!" or "well my character is a dark elf!" You can play an underdark campaign where the dark elf fits in. You can play a planescape game where the part demon fits in. I suppose there's even some way that warforged could even not be total and utter garbage, if we invent a setting tailored to it. But no such setting exists. That they're slapped haphazardly into Eberron along with all the other bullshit in it is just the most-visible example of what makes that setting a piece of shit.

1e and 2e FR was really well designed. 3e and 4e Realms went to shit and stayed because of certain designers.

If literally your only criticism of Eberron and Warforged are "waahh waahh robots are gay and don't belong in fantasy" despite the fact sentient constructs have been in fucking mythologies and fantasy stories before even Tolkien himself existed then well I think that says enough about you.

You're a childish moron and your opinion should be discarded. Gooday.

Ah okay, makes a lot of sense, I can see why you'd dislike them. I thought they fit into Eberon well enough but you're right there is a lot shoved into Eberon and it can be a mangled mess.

>I suppose there's even some way that warforged could even not be total and utter garbage, if we invent a setting tailored to it. But no such setting exists. That they're slapped haphazardly into Eberron

Dude what?

Eberron literally invented Warforged.

> if we invent a setting tailored to it. But no such setting exists. That they're slapped haphazardly into Eberron along with all the other bullshit in it is just the most-visible example of what makes that setting a piece of shit.

... have you... READ Eberron? At all?

They fucking have a reason to be there. The setting just got off a fucking huge war. They're creations of that war. It's literally IN THEIR FUCKING NAME.

Are you seriously this retarded?

And every setting has golems and dragons and demons and dark elves and sneaky little thieves of races.

But they aren't player races. That's the difference.

I am aware they were shoehorned haphazardly into the design of that setting, just like everything else in it. It's a pretty good example of why Eberron is so bad.

Also you're right that there IS a lot shovelled into Eberron (to varying success) but arguing Warforged of all things are one of them? Seriously?

Also that "shoving in" I think is more a factor of it being a D&D setting and people having to make EVERYTHING a kitchen sink to some degree but I digress.

He goes into greater detail here. And as a guy who likes warforged I see where he's talking about.

Ehhhhh yeah but they don't really go into it more than, people dislike them cause they are literal sentient weapons and now these machines of war must find purpose in a world of peace. They could have used a bit more fluffing out, or a greater level of depth. Though I guess that depth could come from you design your character.

I feel like as a center piece of the setting they don't get a lot of depth. Which is a double edged sword. I think it would have been cool if the time line was around 10-20 years after the war not the 1-5 it is.

>Also you're right that there IS a lot shovelled into Eberron (to varying success) but arguing Warforged of all things are one of them? Seriously?
You forgot the following:
>Warforged are a player race

That's the problem with them.

>They could have used a bit more fluffing out, or a greater level of depth

But they do? In plenty of books?

They're a great metaphore for Veterans. Some of the most interesting bits about warforged show how they dealt with being engineered for battle and their various adjustments to living civilized lives as well as plenty of information in the books on how each nation has sort of viewed them.

Not even going into things like the Lord of Blades, the Becoming God, their supposed relationship and origins in Xen'drik and possibly to the former Quori...

Literally what is wrong with them being a player race when they're still interesting as a player race?

It's not like elves are stupid mary sue shit when they were introduced despite them by description being 100% better than man in both D&D's initial texts and Tolkien's fiction.

I do have to say as a disclaimer that I never read in novals, if there were any, so if more fluff comes up there I missed it. Which books are the Quori relations in? I'll admit I read Races, City of Towers, Secrets of Xendrik, and Core a while ago so I'm a bit rusty. Was there anything more to the Becoming God than the warforged are building him, and he may or may not actually be granting spells?

I think he's one of those people who doesn't know that Gygax had an actual literal vampire PC in one of his games.

I'm not them, but I dislike warforged because they lack some basic needs and vulnerabilities organic characters have. Hunger, sleep, discomfort at inclement conditions. Similarly they lack satisfaction that would be gained from satisfying those needs. It makes them less compelling and less driven and less conected to many details of the world.

WARFORGED. ARE. NOT. ROBOTS.

Say it again.

WARFORGED.

ARE.

NOT.

ROBOTS.

They're plant-and-metal instead of flesh. They bleed if cut. They are not powered by batteries.

I wish this "Warforged are literally robots" meme would die, you stupid fucking idiots.

I can dig it.

But they don't bleed...

I can pretty safely say that "Man I gotta take a shit right now" is not how I decide whether a character is compelling or not.

I can't really think of any fantasy protagonists that would have been less compelling if they were warforged, now that I think on it.

You understand Gygax, despite inventing D&D, is widely considered to be the ultimate that-guy, right?

Warforged can be targeted by Avasculate, a spell that only works if you have blood and other bodily fluids to violently expel.

QED, Warforged bleed

...

I know he's "widely considered" to be the ultimate that-guy by people who think the whole of his work is the Tomb of Horrors, as opposed to anyone who actually read a single thing he wrote on topics that aren't hyperlethal tournament modules.

That makes for a lot of role-playing opportunists in my opinion and experience. You were made for war, treated like a weapon more offend than a person. But now the war and despite your freedom you lack an actual life to go back. Its not about the lack of humanity its all about searching and finding it.

You need to go read some of the replays written by people who played with him.

The games Gygax ran and played have nothing to do with RPG gaming after 1980, or so. His version of a game was anachronistic. It was played like a video game. Which makes sense, considering the era he came from and what he was trying to do. But it just looks dated-as-fuck by any modern measure. Not in an OSR way. In a "this is amateur crap" way.

And yet a tremendous majority of DMs still haven't learned even the basic shit that Gygax figured out.

Like how a seething hatred for player races other than humans and dwarves doesn't make you a mature writer.

But they can't bleed out. And are made of solid components so they have no blood. But they're living constructs so they can be targeted b avasculate. Do they take damage because the necromancer just summoned a shit ton of blood inside their body and it explodes out?

Oh d&d never change

>Like how a seething hatred for player races other than humans and dwarves doesn't make you a mature writer.
That strawman didn't work the first time you tried it. Still doesn't.

>basic shit that Gygax figured out.

Like what? Just curious I don't really know much about Gygax or his game-style.

Nice cherrypicking.

A warforged will not experience disconfort when wearing armor all day. He will not rejoice smelling a rich meal after going hungry, or wonder if the lembas will last him to the destination. He is not going to be deterred by the plague outbreak in the city. He won't feel the bite of a harsh winter. He wont care if his mantle is rags or if he has one at all. The softness of a bed means nothing to him.

Nothing. He was really quite bad. His games played like this "You reach a river. Do you go east or west?" "Well let's consider..." "No: East or West." "Fine, West." "Ok you encounter a monster and it attacks you."

It basically runs like a computer, dungeon-crawling RPG in the 90s. Play Eye of the Beholder. That's how he ran games, with exactly that level of story depth and role playing.

Because your minuscule, insignificant mind cannot comprehend the glory that is the FR.

Playing a character like that sounds really interesting. Particularly since the "Races of Eberron" supplement for 3.5 made it pretty clear that even though warforged don't NEED those things, a lot of them develop a desire or "phantom" feeling for them anyway.

Warforged are basically a race of Data and Lore. You don't find that interesting?

The quantity of faerun's lore is both its biggest strength and its biggest weakness.

>There is something in the forgotten realms for everyone
Yes. And more often than not these parts feel like they are linked with loosely applied ducttape. Faerun as a world is segmented into sub-settings, which don't necessarily connect.

On the other hand, these sub settings often have good material, and lots of it.

And then there's theres stuff like self-insert/shonen-kun Drizzt. Drizzt is just bad.

I vaguely recall reading somewhere that they're made, in part, of still-living wood. Maybe it's wringing out the vital fluids there.

>You need to go read some of the replays written by people who played with him.
Got a link? I know Gynax was much more into the wargame side of DnD than the roleplaying side.

Yeah but you sacrifice other oportunities. And I hate to be that guy, but you can get that search for direction story without being a warforged and sacrificing so much casual color.

One can make many things work, but I presume you have classes or species you don't like too and can understand that uneasy feeling when you have to work again one aspect of a character and basically struggle to redeem it for yourself.

Not really. I've found something interesting to poke at in pretty much every fictional race I've ever seen.

Because its a kitchen sink setting (not absolutely terrible on its own) that's filled with some absolutely terrible OC's.

Yeah, its true I don't like playing as certain races. But I can appreciate their place in the setting or how others can make them work on a game and enjoy playing them. Even fucking Kender have their place and can be somewhat entreating in the dragonlance novels, never seen anyone play one or hear a story where they were done right.

Its actually pretty easy how one can completely ignore and make those characters disappear.

>Its actually pretty easy how one can completely ignore and make those characters disappear.

Yeah but it's a lot of shitty characters to make vanish. Not to mention what's the point of playing in the setting if I have to remove a chunk of the setting to make it not-garbage? I'd rather play in a non-garbage setting.

No, I like to have an eye on what my characters feel sensorically for imersion. Here I can joyfully have the emphatic feeling of a blank space. Removal of needs pushes a bit in direction of this robotic goal oriented murder hobo behavior. And the search for humanity is not compelling to me, at least not more than the sheere input of living with it would be. And playing through that arc seems like a chore to me because I can see the themes and setpiece moments already layed out in a path very clearly. Maybe because the robot learning to feel is not exactly new.

There is some web sup that gave a guidline how to stat the lord of blades and it also pointed out that like most religious casters in ebberon, warforged clerics got their power believing that he existed and he had domains.

Eberron went full on board with the greater entities of the outer planes giving divine power and clerics being able to gain power through ideals.

You realize the only reason dwarves and elves don't have that stigma is because of the hundreds of fantasy series spamming them, right?

God when I first got that book I loved it!

If I didn't learn about all the baggage that came attached to it afterwards, I might still love it.

But I did learn, and I don't.

One of Gygax's early articles talked about how 3d6 down the line was a bad way to play that he didn't personally use.

All dms when we played 2e and beyond used to give an array when they wanted to run lengthy campaigns.

Any time we had 3d6 of any form was when they wanted to run a one shot or episode like game.

>Drizz't was a good character, only problem is that he got copied and used relentlessly by everyone.

>It was played like a video game. Which makes sense, considering the era he came from
The era that had no video games and in which people like Gary played zero video games?!?

What are you talking about?

Man what? 3e was the best portrayal of the Realms. Only 5e is close.

>how to spot a man who only played from 3e onwards

>3e was the best portrayal of the Realms

Fucking what

>Drzz't

I have no idea why people add in random apostrophes to his name.

Drizzt Do'Urden. It's not hard to spell.

>t.professional game designer and literary star

I prefer Greyhawk. It feels like the aftermath of a game of fantasy Crusader Kings. Has a nice, plausible feel to it while still having the potential for just about any type of campaign you could want to run. You could even run a Conan-style sword & sorcery campaign, just drop the players in the Amedio Jungle.

Or up north with the nomads and Blackmoor (Greyhawk version).

Yes, well, I did not want to overemphasize aspects of art and aesthetics, but it is so very hard to describe matters of good and bad taste, internal consistence (of a story/world), overall standard and complexity in regards to world building, conception of a fantasy setting and so on. How to transport the idea that quality is indeed a factor and that you can (and should) somehow judge a fantasy conception as a whole in terms vaguely objective?

>you can't criticize something without yourself being an expert

cmon man

Are you implying that there's something inherently wrong with playing demons and golems and dragons as characters? I'm not going to pretend that non-human player races are usually done well (they're usually humans with a thin coat of paint) but that doesn't make the idea bad. Eberron even goes to the extent of trying to make its robots interesting (even though it doesn't succeed, in my opinion).

while it's not the worst fantasy setting I know of, it's probably the worst official D&D setting

>dual-wielding Drow
you mean like most drow

even there crossbows are handheld

i like greyhawk myself just play down all the circle of 8 stuff and its pretty fun.

I think FR gets a lot of bad rep due to being intentionally generic. It's almost always presented as the 'standard fantasy setting' by both Wizards and the fans.

Personally, I dislike the focus on characters other than the PCs. The high level characters included in the setting are mostly meant for the fans, to get to play alongside their favorites from the books. And that's bullshit.

Also, the canon is just weird. Gods and people come back from the dead more often than Jesus, entire areas of interesting shit is dropped for no reason. It's like there are no stakes to fight over, because anything that you as a group develop might end up just being gone next edition. You could have a huge campaign going in 3rd ed involving the Red Wizards and taking place in the Lake of Steam area. Next edition the Red Wizards have changed into something unrecognizable and the Lake area is gone, your only option being to go back to an earlier edition if you want your campaign to continue.

Warforged is the player race version of Chaotic Neutral.

?

While 3e had some good ideas, in terms of mechanics and lore it was a complete steaming pile of horse faeces.

>Gods and people come back from the dead more often than Jesus
In fairness, it kind of makes sense that gods are really really fucking hard to kill permanently.

>tfw you really really like the Sword Coast and Baldur's Gate, but then you realise you only like it because of the BG games

What books do I read for Greyhawk? Anything 3e or 5e?

>Warforged can't have other vulnerabilities

3E had the Greyhawk Gazetteer. It's basically a campaign setting sourcebook. Kind of bland though. 5E has nothing... yet.

Because it's one of the earliest unified settings that brought a lot of stuff together from other fantasy sources and put a slightly more contemporary feel to it. There's so much going on people can't help but draw comparisons to other fantasy settings. A sort of simplified "Diddy did it." type of affiar.

To be completely fair, dual-wielding is a drow staple and one of the few things Drizzt does that -doesn't- fly in the face of drow culture. In the earlier stuff they were largely ambidextrous and widely regarded as the only ones that could dual-wield with two long blades.

So... Dual-wielding drow =/= Drizzt clone

Every Dungeons and Dragons setting is a cheap caricature. That's the style of the entire franchise.

My guess is that it's because you don't like D&D as a genre.

Faerun was never intended to be great literature, it was intended to be a great playground for adventurers and dungeonmasters. That big beige book you posted captured my imagination for many years and my players were glad they bought it for me.

One of the NPC's in the book OP posted is a dual-wielding drow operating on the surface. She's evil as fuck but she pretends to be Chaotic Good and compares herself to Drizzt and so people give her a free pass.
Based.

I'm not sure what exactly "professional" and "amateur" mean in a context like this, but I love Greenwood's early novels, and my favorite parts of the setting are the ones where you can see his style and his sense of humor.

I would crawl through broken glass to play in one of his games.

Also he was a guest judge for RPG Superstar (even though I don't think he was otherwise associated with Pathfinder), and all of his feedback and commentary was very insightful, where it wasn't downright hilarious.

>she
>anyone ever trusting a female drow
the fools

You can see Greenwood's name sprinkled in Pathfinder stuff like Adventure Paths and fluff. Hell, the River Kingdoms is almost a 1:1 copy of the Border Kingdoms...though many of the Paizo staff wrote for FR l, so it could just be someone's favorite place reskinned. I saw Salvatore's somewhere in the earliest incarnations of PF, but I don't remember why or what he said.

Can we use this thread to discuss the FR and therein?

>"You are not a carpenter, therefore you may not criticize a wobbly chair that gives ypu splinters when you sit down in it"

because it's popular, and popular=bad in minds of most people

You mean it's not?