Forgotten Realms created to erase connections to Gygax?

[slimykuotoan]

This' something I've heard repeatedly over the years...

Any have any thoughts on this?

[cuchulainkevin]

Well, I don't think it was created to replace Greyhawk, because Ed Greenwood was running games in it well prior to TSR.

Things were added in that had nothing to do with Greenwood's FR later though so that every Earth like culture could be represented.

It's possible that they bought FR to marginialize Gygaxian Greyhawk.

I tend to think they were adding settings because they realized they were out of rulebooks to publish with 1E.

They did the same thing several times during the 2E era and it wasn't to marginalize the FR.

And that's from the perspective of a Greyhawk DM that has no use for thr FR.

Morty
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[pactmaster]

The Forgotten Realms was presented alongside Greyhawk for years in the old Dragon magazines of the 80's, I never saw any real competition between the two settings in the beginning. I have always been a homebrew person and not much of a setting fan, so I can be missing something. Greyhawk never had much of an impact on me and the Forgotten Realms even less.
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[gideon_thorne]

Not a word of truth in it. Ed Greenwood has his own setting just as Gary has his.

Both are popular for quite different reasons. ^_^
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Peter Bradley

[Julian Grimm]

That's one thing I have discovered about the early days of the hobby. Most had their own setting and a signature dungeon of sorts. These settings are where Greyhawk, Blackmoor, the Wilderlands and even FR came from. And I'd suspect Airdhe but the Trolls haven't told much about Airdhe's origins much to my dismay.
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[slimykuotoan]

David Cook and other notables respond:
http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=27794

[gideon_thorne]

James generally has a good bead on the who, what and why of the industry as well.

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"We'll go out through the kitchen!" Tanis Half-Elven

Peter Bradley

[Julian Grimm]

Interesting things there. For my own part I did try the 3e stuff but really didn't like it. I pretty much stick to the 1e sources for FR and not much else. It's a pretty quality setting that way and hard to beat.
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