Sword Coast because ... Baldur's Gate. Loved that game, Icewind Dale or Neverwinter not so much.

If you have any familarity with BG1, one could create a pretty decent low level hexcrawl in that area without a lot of work. Lots of lairs, dungeons, woods, badlands and eccentric quest givers.

Considering inspiration, I find the Dalelands, Cormyr, and Sword Coast the most banal of the offerings available because it has the most extant canon to parse through. That means wading through "fan-mines," where players hop on expecting X canon, while GM is trying to sell Y new content. Doable, but you have to get everyone on the same page, which may take some un-learning.

However, you get ready-made melodrama content. And plenty of that from which to choose, to boot. The challenge is knowing when to stop and make it yours. Also, when to hold back and tease out what's expected, such as the first visit to a wondrous named city (Luskan, Waterdeep, Neverwinter, etc.).

My biggest gripe with GMs using pre-fab settings like FR is the forgetting of adding their own material — or at least porting in other pre-fab into unoccupied space. There's deliberately a lot of space left blank; this is where GMs mark up their territory. This is where all those little "starter village adventures" and "beginner dungeon mines" goes in between.

Luskan can be the fabled pirate city of Tortuga goal to a whole bunch of low level adventure preparation. To have other places between the map dots to go is explicitly your responsibility. And goodness knows they've given more than enough space for you to do so. (Luskan to Mirabar is around 200+ miles. Luskan to Neverwinter is around 160+ miles. Luskan to Icewind Dale is around 140+ miles, half over rough terrain.)

Quote from: Opaopajr;823040Calimshan = fantasy human + genie extra planar culture based on a mix of Arabian Night tropes, empire conquest v. Beholders, and the biggest city on Faerûn, the 2 million people behemoth Calimport and its 52 city districts.

i think you just sold me on the realms

The area around Tantras was always my favorite.. forgetting what it was called just now..

Tantras is near Raven's Bluff in The Vast, east of Sembia across to the eastern shore of Dragon's Reach, south of Moonsea, west of Impiltur.

I'm partial to the region north of Waterdeep (centered around Silverymoon), and then the Dalelands and the Moonshae Isles.

Waterdeep!


 WATERDEEP!!!

Go with big city that has cool maps.

- Ed C.

My longest campaign was set in Cormyr. My second longest was set in Sembia. Though I customized them a great deal.

Quote from: Opaopajr;823040If temptation is your thing, it's really just all too big.

Wow! Thanks for the encyclopedic rundown. Very helpful.

I have this weird nostalgic love/hate thing with FR, borne of Jeff Easley covers and SSI PC games. Generally speaking, I've found that sticking to 1e material (and thus avoiding later transplants, e.g. Mulhorand, Unther, Maztica, Kara-Tur, Zakhara) and toning down NPCs is the way to go for me.

I like the vast swathes of wilderness, the patchwork of petty kingdoms and city-states, the Lankhmaresque feel of roguish but decent adventurers helping preserve a delicate balance between good and evil that preserves the Realms a rugged but thriving (maybe even idyllic) world.

Which is why I think 5e, eschewing the name-level stronghold and domain mini-game (like every edition since AD&D 2e) should work better with FR. Greyhawk is ripe for an ambitious adventurer's claims to manifest destiny. In Toril I get the sense that experienced adventurers are less likely to found a city or a kingdom, than they are to "adopt" an existing one, either as an open ruler (Alustriel of Silverymoon, Nasher of Neverwinter, the Captains of Luskan) or as an advisor, defender or éminence grise (Elminster) or something in between (the ever-secretive Lords of Neverwinter).

Dunno if any of this makes sense to anyone else, but that's how I see it.

Chessenta, Mulhorand, & Unther are from 1e. Yes, the transplant Greeks, Babylonians, and Egyptians are from 1e. No, it's nowhere as ridiculous as it sounds.

As for stronghold/domain game, it's there, if you want it. In fact Lands of Intrigue goes into claiming the Eastern hinterlands of Tethyr & Calimshan for one's very own starter kingdom. And they also gave Duke and Marquis stats on major Amn and Tethyr lands, along with ruling NPCs with plots and motivations, just in case.

Really, I only just got into Forgotten Realms in the past 3 years, having never read the novels, played the video games, ran the adventure modules... nothing. This has been more of a blessing than not. It's nowhere as bad as people are talking about so far as I've seen.

Granted there's a bucket of potential Mary Sues in the making. But I'd like to think any GM worth their salt knows how to not be a douche masturbating all over their players' faces at the table. Given the angst nowadays, high school with FR & Dragonlance at their prime must have been a very awkward time...

So, did you choose anything yet? What exactly do you want to do with your little slice of the realms? What are you pitching to your players?

Quote from: Opaopajr;823935Chessenta, Mulhorand, & Unther are from 1e. Yes, the transplant Greeks, Babylonians, and Egyptians are from 1e. No, it's nowhere as ridiculous as it sounds.

As we've established in a previous thread I'm not opposed to having cultures calqued from history, au contraire. But generally speaking I perceive the "genericness" of FR, while bland at times, does have something going on for it.

Quote from: Opaopajr;823935As for stronghold/domain game, it's there, if you want it. In fact Lands of Intrigue goes into claiming the Eastern hinterlands of Tethyr & Calimshan for one's very own starter kingdom. And they also gave Duke and Marquis stats on major Amn and Tethyr lands, along with ruling NPCs with plots and motivations, just in case.

Interesting. I might look into it. What edition is this for, again?

Quote from: Opaopajr;823935Really, I only just got into Forgotten Realms in the past 3 years, having never pread the novels, played the video games, ran the adventure modules... nothing. pThis has been more of a blessing than not. It's nowhere as bad as people are talking about so far as I've seen.

Like everything else on the Internet, there is quite a bit of exaggeration.

Quote from: Opaopajr;823935Granted there's a bucket of potential Mary Sues in the making. But I'd like to think any GM worth their salt knows how to not be a douche masturbating all over their players' faces at the table. Given the angst nowadays, high school with FR & Dragonlance at their prime must have been a very awkward time...

Tell me about it! :eek: The high school group had a ton of FR novel/canon wank going on. The group I've had since college were huge DL nerds and still annoy me to no end (we played a recent AD&D 2e one-shot initially set in Krynn, actually).

Some people improved with age, though. Some... didn't.

Quote from: Opaopajr;823935So, did you choose anything yet? What exactly do you want to do with your little slice of the realms? What are you pitching to your players?

I'm on vacation right now and still toying with the idea. I want a game that's less Conan and more Lankhmar than my usual games, if that makes any sense, and FR in general seemed a good fit.

Quote from: Koltar;823663Waterdeep!


 WATERDEEP!!!

Go with big city that has cool maps.

- Ed C.

You're really Ed Greenwood, aren't you?

Lands of Intrigue are 2e. Though I believe Amn, Tethyr, & Calimshan are also in Empire of the Sands 1e.

Calimport, the capitol of Calimshan, is the largest city on Faerûn with 2 million people and something like 52 city districts. It has its own 2e supplement of its own. If you want to do Lankhmar visits Aladdin, not a bad starting point.

That said, if you want to do more Den of Thieves, Isle of Tortuga in British Isles, Scandinavia you'd be hard pressed to beat Luskan. It already has a long pirate history, built atop the lost Orc city ruins of Illusk, and established from refugees of legendary floating Netheril itself – now the blasted wastes of Anauroch. There's plenty of city maps of Luskan and nowhere the canon "fan-mines" as Waterdeep, not that that should matter as I assume you can handle your table of players.

The idea of running a game with nothing but a copy of the 1e FR boxed set, ACKS and maybe the gazeteer for the chosen adventuring area sounds pretty enticing.

I'm a fan of the 2E Realms and have a lot of material for it but even then the ridiculous proliferation of magic and superpowerful npc's bothered me. I don't even have to worry about canon wanks in the group aside from my own tendancy to overindulge.

I'm not terribly knowledgable of the FR lore, but Impiltur always seemed interesting to me, just because of the lack of other things writing about it.