Why do so many people on Veeky Forums say Forgotten Realms is generic medieval fantasy?

Why do so many people on Veeky Forums say Forgotten Realms is generic medieval fantasy?

Did they not even read the core books where there is an emphasis on the world entering an age of rapid change with the invention of the printing press and firearms slowly but surely becoming known as the weapon type carried by elite mercenaries?

I mean I can understand avoiding some of the splats that suggest two different groups a continent apart have been trying to figure out what they can do with their secret projects that are based around steam providing significant power if contained in a proper apparatus, but to ignore the fact the setting wanted to do away with the strict alignment interpretations well before planescape ever did only shows a lack of research.

Or did this board perhaps start with 4e? An edition so praised for removing NPCs that the former editions rarely gave a shit about, in exchange for sending things back to the dark ages and creating an even more stale status quo than even 3e Realms.

If you are able to defend it (read the material) why are you willing to?

It's a setting that focuses on Character-driven narrative, which would be fine if it was just a campaign setting, but it's also the setting for a bunch of novels, and therein lies the problem: All novels are "canon" within the setting's timeline, what's more, it has a progressing timeline.
So while all this interesting stuff is happening, the forefront is whatever 7-8 writers are going through at any given time, and whatever module puts your characters in an equal but parallel importance to every other character, so it all comes off as generic heroic fantasy.

how is this different from generic dnd?

It isn't because Forgotten Realms determined what Generic D&D is the same way Lord of the Rings determined generic fantasy. It's predated by Greyhawk and other settings, but only OSR grogs remember them now, and none of them ever experienced as much support as Forgotten Realms.

>shitting on 4e

eat shit

>none of them ever experienced as much support as Forgotten Realms.

Isn't that more because TSR went ahead and turned Forgotten Realms into their ktichen sink setting and bolted on every regionally themed setting onto FR once FR got really popular?

Like, I feel like the two seperate Asian themed expansions, the Arabic Al'Qadim, the New World Mystaca stuff were all absent from the autistically thorough maps Ed Greenwood sold to Dragon Magazine.

A lot of things have been written about FR, and most of it contradicts some other part of it. It used to be Ed Greenwood's free-love hippie paradise where orgies were commonplace and bisexuality was expected. It's changed in a lot of ways to make it more generic.

>It's another thinly-veiled 4e troll thread

I'll answer your question if you post more lewd witches

Adding to that, some things changed because of money.

FR’s Thay used to be Asian, but TSR was selling Oriental Adventures and decided the stuff in that book would represent the Asian cultures for FR, not Thay.

Then they added the Moonshae Isles and the Uthgardt tribes because the guy who wrote them allegedly was owed a favor.

>bolted on every regionally themed setting onto FR once FR got really popular?
They chose FR do be the popular setting, redirected any promising content there, _then_ bolted the regional stuff on.

Bolting swttings to FR was their most successful attempt to remedy their horrinly splintered market.

They chose it and Mystara to be their flagships for Basic and Advanced.

Advanced ended up selling better, so FR won.

>elfs
>dwarfs
>humans
>black elves
>magic

it's generic. that doesn't mean it's bad, though.

FR has become a kitchen sink setting over the years. TSR in particular plonked a lot of crap in. Pretty sure Kara-Tur was just blobbed in, which is why it feels so odd. Despite all of that though, some of the earlier FR stuff (even with TSR) is a guilty pleasure of mine.

It goes a bit beyond 'Hippy free love' and outright into 'Magical realm' when you get to the genderswapping orgies and such.

It was originally supposed to be almost-Renaissance with shades of the industrial, yes (gnomes, Lantan, the printing press, etc.). Drow in early drafts had access to more advanced technology. However, TSR and later Wizards decided to drop those aspects, so they largely exist only in older sourcebooks or as side-notes.

That did have the hilarious side effect of completely nullifying any "muh struggle" trans elements. Just pop on down to the cleric, get the spell cast on you, and done.

There are people that still give a shit? I thought everybody moved on?

Every edition has it's fans and 4e fans are still rather defensive due to several years while it was out that it got so heavily shat on and trolled it actually got banned off Veeky Forums for a while.

>that pic
why would you wear a hat indoors?
why would you dress like that if you're not going out?
why would you keep the hat on and not your shoes?
I know it's fetish bait but goddam have some common sense, porn artist #344

Your telling me 4e is more grognard than 3x? That actually surprised me, but sure.

Eh, I'd say that 4e fans are more defensive if it gets brought up but 3.x fans have a tendency to shove their game everywhere more because they still act like it was the decade or so where it was the #1 game. Different sorts of grognard.

>Did they not even read the core books where there is an emphasis on the world entering an age of rapid change with the invention of the printing press and firearms slowly but surely becoming known as the weapon type carried by elite mercenaries?

Wow, a fantasy setting focused on the decline of an age and the advancement of technology? It's almost like ALL OF THE FANTASY. Warhammer, Tolkien, Feist, Pratchett, Warcraft, JRPGs that aren't shit, JRPGs that ARE shit... This concept is as far from new as you can get, it's every western, and every samurai movie. So is there anything about Forgotten Realms that isn't generic or are you just misinformed?

Is blaming 4rries the new scapegoat around here now? Because you can't claim that a community is dead and then blame said community for every bad thing random faggots on the internet say about your system.

I mean, you don't see /v/irgins blaming xbots for shitposting now do you?

The Moonshae isles were the subject of literally the first Forgotten Realms novel ever published.

SHUT UP AND POST HOT MAGES

I don't have any, but I support that.
Anyone have this image of a naked magic apprentice kneeling over some enchanting circle?

...

...

Blah bluh bluh spesial setting.

It's the most generic and boring piece of shit out there. The designs and artstyle are atrocious and unimaginative, entry artist tier which nowadays seems that Wotc has embraced as the aesthetic for DnD. Also no, I read three books of the Salvatore dude with the dark elf omnibus and they are some of the most atrocious pieces of literature I've ever read, even amongst fantasy which is the apex of shitty books. If the dark elf is one of the core characters and his books are one of the principal pillars of the setting, well, the setting can go fuck itself.

I do wonder what the setting would look like without TSR/WotC banning everything cool.

It's not that FR is generic, it's that it's kitchen sink fantasy. They just throw absolutely every fantasy trope they can into it. Fuck OP, you even admitted to the writers trying to shove steampunk in there. It's a case of using so many ingredients that it tastes like nothing, and maybe a minor case of the setting not having an ounce of creative integrity.

this is a big part of it for me. All of the characters in the novels are borderline perfect and can do no wrong (unless it is failure that allows them to succeed), where as PCs typically aren't.
As a result there is really no point for PCs to try to do anything that may or may not lead to saving the world (or nation, or city, or hell, even their favorite bar) when there are obviously so many other people who are better equipped to deal with ANY threat.
THAT (imo) is why 4th ed FR is good, because all the people who could have saved the world, have been removed from the table, leaving room for the PCs to go out and make names for themselves.

why is she wearing ankle shackles?

Why and how was 4e banned?

user, if you need this explained to you, you're not old enough to be here.

1.) It's probably some sort of Dark Souls clothing item reference. (She is also holding an Estus Flask from the series)

2.) IT'S HOT AND FETISH FUEL user

She must be pretty big. An estus flask is the size of a pint.

Aren't the shadowking books basically about how anyone who tries to be a hero is guaranteed a painful end?

this thread is kinda dumb but I will jerk off to this pic

Don't jerk off to cats.

4e's groggier due to the fact a surprising amount of 4e's playerbase came from some crusty old grogs off AD&D and OD&D. Plus, high defensiveness just from being shat on so much.

I love FR.
but I love spelljammer more

>Spelljammer

How dare you.

no fucking clue, I read 1 of the books and was insulted by how bad the writing was I gave up on it. the only book I've found that was worse was Twilight (which I read because my friends wanted to know if there was anything in it that would be a problem for his 13 year old daughter)

if it is just fetish fuel, fine, I was thinking they were supposed to be armor os some stupid shit like that

Nigga one of the biggest fixes to FR is "Kill everyone above level 7"

>it actually got banned off Veeky Forums for a while.

>iamverysmart.txt

Hence the setting feels like it has no internal consistency at all.

It's pretty kitchen sink... not as bad as Golarion, but still pretty bad. This is not a bad way to introduce new players to the game.

Nothing about those two settings really inspire me.

I like Dark Sun, Midnight, and Ravenloft.

I want to check out Primevil Thule. That might be exactly what I'm looking for right now.