The city of Waterdeep

Veeky Forums hates Forgotten Realms because of the spellplague clusterfuck, Drizzt and Elminster.

FR is probably the most boring, generic kitchen sink setting I can think of next to Golarion.

I think the Ondonti are pretty creative.

Blame TSR and WotC for that. The core concepts originally pitched by Greenwood made for a perfectly passable setting. Just stick to 1e and early 2e material and you'll be fine.

Tbh the first thing I think of when I think of Waterdeep is the Hordes of the Underdark expac for Neverwinter Nights

... Even if you're only in Waterdeep itself for a pretty brief span of time

Go to bed grandpas

>spellplague clusterfuck
What is that? Why are those things hated?

Best I understand it, it's the closest thing Forgotten Realms had to an End Times even - Mystra was assassinated, magic basically exploded and left most mages mad or powerless, a bunch of gods died and things went haywire... then they pseudo-reversed a lot of the decisions later on because reasons

When 4e came around, WotC somehow got the impression that FR wasn't generic enough, so in a bout of genius they decided to remove everything from the setting that got in they way of being completely uninteresting.

It was not received well by literally anyone.

It is a pretty generic fantasy world trapped forever in a pseudo medieval time period
For the most part

The only reason it gets shat on so much by Veeky Forums is because it
1.Is Generic
2.Tends to place an inordinate focus on High Level NPCs ,created by the Authors of the setting, see pic related
3.Is a meme to hate it

The setting is okay but homebrewing stuff in and out makes it better, and some of the books and published adventures are entertaining

You are right.

Damn. Is it easily retconned back to 'normal'?

Already was more or less

What's this? People running for their lives? Yeah, yeah, what else is new?

The biggest problem with FR is it was treated as a unique, special snowflake setting instead of the perfectly generic default place it was. Now that it's the default DnD setting, it can properly serve its role as the kinda-bland but perfectly-serviceable defalt setting. If you want to play somewhere more interesting, you can go play in like Eberron or something.

Please stop bullying Forgotten Realms.

Always wanted to run a Quest that showed a lot of the good parts and lore of the Realms, but then the /qst/ board showed up and pretty much damned all quests.

Underrated
>all you had to do was follow the damn ley lines

When it comes to fantasy super-cities, Sharn blows Waterdeep out of the fucking water.

Yes: Don't use 4e content.

>Drizzt
Worst character ever.

Was it ever. The Sharn supplement was probably the best book for Eberron.

In terms of generic dnd settings, the big three seem to be Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, and Dragonlance. What are the major differences and why are there fucking three?

Things like Eberron and Dark Sun I get, because they have some pretty massive tonal shifts.

Forgotten Realms is big because of the novels and the various cRPGs based in it. It's a huge kitchen sink setting with iconic locations and characters (Waterdeep, Neverwinter, Drizzt, Elminster, etc.).

Greyhawk is big because it was the first functional D&D setting and was the official setting for 3.5e (though it didn't get any setting-specific splats because ?????).

Dragonlance is big because of the huge amount of novels based in it.

I don't know much about Greyhawk and Dragonlance specifically, though.

There are three because they were home campaign settings of 3 different people
Forgotten Realms is epic fantasy
Greyhawk is grittier
Dragonlance is shit

>The setting is okay but homebrewing stuff in and out makes it better

That's true for 95% of settings, so it's pretty meaningless. In fact, odds are good that someone just making a homebrew setting out of scratch is going to make something better and with more of a hook to grab player's imaginations.

As far as official stuff goes Birthright, Greyhawk, Darksun, Al'Qadim, Kalamar, Lankhmar, Ravenloft, Planescape, hell even Wilderlands of High Fantasy are all a superior choice to FR.

The only one I can think of that's worse is Eberron, but that's a pretty low bar.

The only reason to play in FR is if you like your games to be more about special snowflake superheroes than about oldschool swords & sorcery, and you don't care about plotholes.

Technically speaking, isn't Al'Qadim just on the southern continent of the FR setting world?

It was.
The gods got spanked by Ao and told to stop fucking up. Now gods have Chosen and thats all communication they are allowed with the plane. They can send power, but no random show of strength or smiting, because they didn't stop shitting everything when allowed to.

>The only one I can think of that's worse is Eberron
Shit taste detected.

Also Al-Qadim is part of Forgotten Realms.

>worse is Eberron,

You're not wrong about that, but AlQadim is part of the Realms.

FR was the first* setting designed specifically for D&D campaigns, and it shows. If White Wolf hadn't pulled all of gamings creative engergy into "real world" modern fantasy, we might eventually have had something decent.

[spoilers]*(Greyhawk was originally a wargaming map; the RPG setting info was added in after D&D blew up.)[/spoilers]

FR wasn't designed for D&D originally, it was originally a "place" that Ed Greenwood set his fantasy stories.

The RPG games came later, when he first DM'd for his D&D group (Company of Crazed Venturers, followed by the Knights of Eveningstar/Myth Drannor).

It's only a model.....

>What are the major differences
FR is Cold War: High-Powered Adventurers Edition
Greyhawk is LotR but the Fellowship aren't there
Dragonlance is Fantasy WW2

Oh, and as for this:
>why are there fucking three?
Greyhawk is Gary's home setting

FR is Ed Greenwood's home setting

Dragonlance was cooked up specifically to be a series of modules with a storyline, and novelisations thereof. It's why the DL module series is really railroady, because you're basically playing through a novel (the first four were released before the novels, and so are somewhat less 'roady)

I'll take a generic setting every day instead of a "unique" one. 99% of the time they are just FR/Tolkien derivatives with some stupid extra premise.

I am pretty sure there are worse characters.

usa was like that way before trump desu

My group has been playing the same campaign for 5 years in Forgotten realms, and we've never had any problems with the setting.

What makes it so shit?

Not a great character, but the Legion of Misunderstood Losers that all played Drizzt clones for a decade or two sealed his fate. He became the poster child for all Emo Outcasts Who are Awesome But Can't get Dates Because They Come From Another World.

It isn't.
People who try hard to be cool love to claim that anything popular and 'mainstream' is garbage, and only they know what is cool.

The only real problem is that many, many writers have contributed to it. Some were not as good as others. Some were really bad.
Some were told "Finish that crap by Friday at 4pm, it has to go to the printer. Remember that your audience is oblivious 14 year old zit faced boys."
Is it Perfect? No. Nothing is.
Is it good/playable? Yes, if you have a good DM and group.

I have only read the campaign setting guide and part of unapproachable east. I don't hate it but here are the problems I have with it:
>characters or even groups of legendary level characters strewn about in down to small town level.
I'm not even talking about Elminster and co., just some ex adventurers with no real background. Boom level 20 mayor and her level 19 lesbian lover captain of the guard.
>90% humans final destination, except dwarf holds or elven realm, then they flip with humans.
They give population breakdowns but hardly do any interesting mixtures with it. Even when evil races are explicitly described as taking part in normal society, they are still excluded in breakdowns.
>Has nations that worship earth gods.
>Places with a lot of focus, like Waterdeep are very vanilla.
>Some themed areas don't blend well with neighboring regions.
>On the flip side, many regions are very samey. Always have to have cloned druid forests everywhere for example.
>Doesn't show monster realms and doesn't allow them to interact with the given nations (beyond orc army comes from the mountains when convenient I guess)

Seconded. I always wanted to run a game based out of Waterdeep.

>Are people generally okay with Forgotten Realms being the default setting for the D&D game?
As long as everyone agrees to headcanon the Wall of the Faithless out of existence.

But user, Kelemvor took it away when he became the God of the Dead anyway. It was only put back because a writer forgot to read the right design notes for the campaign setting.

Not good enough. I need it to have never existed in the first place.

>Forgets Mystara
>Thinks Eberron is shit
Get the fuck out

Who gives a shit about what Veeky Forums thinks if your campaign is fun for your group.

What's the problem with WoF?

It's a fucking atrocity.

It isn't just shit. It's hot garbage.

I take your point, shit is at least useful as fertilizer.

>Doesn't show monster realms and doesn't allow them to interact with the given nations (beyond orc army comes from the mountains when convenient I guess)

This is FR's greatest crime. There are so many cool monsters they could have turned into interesting kingdoms, but no, it's all "LOTS orcs overrunning human kingdoms". Massive lack of imagination there.

>I'll have two healing potions

It upsets atheists

I gotta read Eberron cause apparently it's super polarizing, either it's the best thing to ever happen to this cursed planet or UTTER IRREDEEMABLE SHIT

As something instituted by a very evil god of the dead to deliberately terrify people, it worked.

As something Kelemvor put in place, I think it makes no sense. If editors had been doing their job we wouldn't have had the problem.

A lot of the deity-stuff post-Avatar Crisis is pretty retarded. There's a reason why Greenwood ignored it completely for his home game; it was something TSR made up to explain edition changes.

>The city of Waterdeep

Home of Danger Mouse.

It was brilliant, they killed off every stupid OC novel character and depowered those who survived.

He beat Demogorgon single handed you know

No he didn't, he had most of Menzo's wizards and clerics holding protection spells on him plus the accumulated psionic kinetic force of being attacked by all the warriors of the city who could shoot at him, and had said Elder Brain hive put all that force into a massive psionic blast.

He was nothing more than a patsy for Demogorgon versus all of Menzoberranzan + Illithids.

Don't you know shitposting when you see it
This was clearly bait

Which is best, Sharn, Waterdeep, or Sigil?

All of that (except the occasional random high level character, though that was more restrained, too) is a 3e issue. In 1e and 2e, everything was super detailed and had lots of character. The weird thing is that a lot of the 3e stuff is just regurgitated 2e material, just told badly.

Best at what? Sigil is my favorite, but Waterdeep is super detailed and granular and has its share of wacky stuff, like that crazy antigravity bubble blessed by the moon and an an arguably even more batshit insane system of government. Sharn is fine, too.

You should check out Elminster's Ecologies if you get a chance. It has all kinds of cool details like how to herd dairy catoblepas, the methods ogres use to hunt landsharks, and leucrotta religion.

Home of the POWERPUFF GIRLS!

IS UNDER ATTACK

Sigil.

Mulhorand & co. didn't exist in 2e?

They've been around since 1st edition.

Then it's not all 3e issues.

>Sigil is my favorite
Philosophy babby detected.

sham is garbage