Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Seldriss 10-05-04, 10:18 AM	I was just wondering: What is the current date in the Realms? (official or most commonly used) I remember that i used to see an updated agenda of the realms, with the date and weather report, somewhere here on this website. But for some reason i can't manage to find it back... :confused:
Purple Dragon Knight 10-05-04, 12:14 PM	I was just wondering: What is the current date in the Realms? (official or most commonly used) I remember that i used to see an updated agenda of the realms, with the date and weather report, somewhere here on this website. But for some reason i can't manage to find it back... :confused:Ask Rich Baker in his thread: his latest novel, "Forsaken House" advances the timeline to 1374 DR, but I do not remember the exact month.
Kuje31 10-05-04, 12:38 PM	The Waterdeep clock and weather report was removed when the site was updated a month or two back. Besides it was wrong half the time and the rumor was that it was based on Seattle's weather. :)
CzarGarrett 10-05-04, 01:03 PM	I think it was supposed to be 3 months real time = 1 month FR time, starting from Shieldmeet in 1372.
Kuje31 10-05-04, 01:15 PM	I think it was supposed to be 3 months real time = 1 month FR time, starting from Shieldmeet in 1372. It was 5 months. But, again, at one point WOTC was behind on that since WOTC laid off and or fired a lot of people or other's quit. So that text in the FRCS is wrong!
CzarGarrett 10-05-04, 07:40 PM	Ah. Well then, I suggest guessing at the current date to the original poster. It seems to be the best bet.
Kuje31 10-05-04, 08:07 PM	Ah. Well then, I suggest guessing at the current date to the original poster. It seems to be the best bet. No PDK said it right. It's 1374 since Rich's newest novel updated the time line. :)
Demetrios 10-08-04, 06:28 PM	No PDK said it right. It's 1374 since Rich's newest novel updated the time line. :) Well, the Shining South sourcebook makes numerous references to 1373 DR as the "current year" (p. 104, p. 119, p. 132, p. 150, and p. 170 are ones I can find with just a quick search).
Kuje31 10-08-04, 09:43 PM	Well, the Shining South sourcebook makes numerous references to 1373 DR as the "current year" (p. 104, p. 119, p. 132, p. 150, and p. 170 are ones I can find with just a quick search). Post them please. I dont own that book yet. Does it say 1373 is the current year or does it just say this and this happened in 1373? If it's the later then that doesn't mean anything. A lot of novels and sourcebooks still take place throughout the past years but 1374 is still the official canon date. I'm STILL waiting for someone to ask Rich and no I am not going to do it because the FRCS makes it clear that sourcebooks and NOVELS change the date.
Demetrios 10-08-04, 11:06 PM	Post them please. I dont own that book yet. Does it say 1373 is the current year or does it just say this and this happened in 1373? If it's the later then that doesn't mean anything. A lot of novels and sourcebooks still take place throughout the past years but 1374 is still the official canon date. I'm STILL waiting for someone to ask Rich and no I am not going to do it because the FRCS makes it clear that sourcebooks and NOVELS change the date. Here are the exact quotes: Page 104 (Timeline for Dambrath): 1373 - Year of Rogue Dragons (current year) Page 119 (Timeline for Estagund and the Shining Lands): 1373 - Year or Rogue Dragons (current year): Merchants of the Shining Lands travel as far as Waterdeep, the Utter East, Zakhara, and Maztica to procure wares for other markets. (Wow, they go as far as the Utter East. How difficult to go 100 miles down the coast! :D ) Page 132 (Timeline for Halruaa): 1373 - Year of Rogue Dragons (current year) Page 150 (Timeline for Luiren): 1373 - Year of Rogue Dragons (current year). Page 170 (Timeline for Shaar and the Great Rift): 1373 - Year of Rogue Dragons (current year). It flatly states in all five timelines given that 1373 is the current year (although not much seems to be happening, apparently!) And as for your statement that a lot of sourcebooks and novels take place in the past, I can point out that equally a lot of novels at least take place in the future...
Kuje31 10-09-04, 12:21 AM	And as for your statement that a lot of sourcebooks and novels take place in the past, I can point out that equally a lot of novels at least take place in the future...[/QUOTE] Then if they take place in the future that is still the current year. But at the time Shining South was written 1373 is the current sourcebook year, however the current canon year is still 1374 because again WOTC says the year changes via sourcebooks and NOVELS. But I said it a few times already, go ask Rich about what the current date is, since you want to keep debating this.
Ramius_Mordale 10-09-04, 01:47 AM	Dude don't debate Kuje31 over the current year this man knows everything that is FR, or just about if not all. I don't think I have ever seen him corrected. *Shrug* Of course, I don't read every thread but what ones I have seen him on he seems to know his stuff. So just put your pride aside and side with Kuje31. You'll save yourself some time and energy that way. :D
Kuje31 10-09-04, 02:17 AM	Dude don't debate Kuje31 over the current year this man knows everything that is FR, or just about if not all. I don't think I have ever seen him corrected. *Shrug* Of course, I don't read every thread but what ones I have seen him on he seems to know his stuff. So just put your pride aside and side with Kuje31. You'll save yourself some time and energy that way. :D :) Well I have been corrected before and I will admit when I am wrong, since I am human just like every one else and I make mistakes. But usually that only happens when I don't double check sourcebooks.
Damador 10-09-04, 03:09 AM	No PDK said it right. It's 1374 since Rich's newest novel updated the time line. :) so - is there a palce that have current timeline with short descriptions of what happens?Iam trying to complete timelines to current times and it seems that no one update it except oficial FR books ( not novels)
Kuje31 10-09-04, 03:37 AM	so - is there a palce that have current timeline with short descriptions of what happens?Iam trying to complete timelines to current times and it seems that no one update it except oficial FR books ( not novels) No there isn't a sourcebook that explains the Rage novels or Rich's new novels because as it was pointed out, the sourcebooks are still being written for 1373. Hells half of the Spider Queen novels haven't even been put into the sourcebooks yet. And for the hundreth time novels are official FR books.
Gray Richardson 10-09-04, 09:16 AM	If I am not mistaken, due to the long lead times for publishing, they start writing/designing most sourcebooks more than a year or even up to two years before the publication date. Its easy then to see then how sourcebooks and novels can get out of synch with each other on whatever the current date is. You have one group of writers that gear their book for what they assume to be a given current year only to have other writers advance the year in their project during that long lead up time to publication. Novels will probably always clip along faster than sourcebooks as they tell stories that are grander in scope and require time to pass in order to advance the story. An novel author sometimes may need months or years to pass for his characters in order for all the events to unfold. Sourcebooks will probably always be behind the novels with regard to the timeline as they are concerned more with setting and facts rather than current events.
Kuje31 10-09-04, 12:29 PM	If I am not mistaken, due to the long lead times for publishing, they start writing/designing most sourcebooks more than a year or even up to two years before the publication date. Its easy then to see then how sourcebooks and novels can get out of synch with each other on whatever the current date is. You have one group of writers that gear their book for what they assume to be a given current year only to have other writers advance the year in their project during that long lead up time to publication. Novels will probably always clip along faster than sourcebooks as they tell stories that are grander in scope and require time to pass in order to advance the story. An novel author sometimes may need months or years to pass for his characters in order for all the events to unfold. Sourcebooks will probably always be behind the novels with regard to the timeline as they are concerned more with setting and facts rather than current events. Excatly, except I partly disagree about sourcebooks and current events. :)
Ramius_Mordale 10-10-04, 04:14 AM	:) Well I have been corrected before and I will admit when I am wrong, since I am human just like every one else and I make mistakes. But usually that only happens when I don't double check sourcebooks. *Nods* Just as well just saying your the go to guy for the FR knowledge for most stuff. Keep up the good work.
Kuje31 10-11-04, 03:27 PM	Well, the Shining South sourcebook makes numerous references to 1373 DR as the "current year" (p. 104, p. 119, p. 132, p. 150, and p. 170 are ones I can find with just a quick search). Here's Rich's answer since someone over on the mailing list saw this thread and actually asked Rich. :) Posted on October 11, 2004: "Our original plan was for the setting to advance 2 months of "world" time for every 5 months of real time. IIRC, the FRCS came out in November 2001. We're at 35 months since that point, or 7*2 = 14 months after the date given in the FRCS (Shieldmeet, 1372 DR). So the "intended" date would be Eleint of 1373 DR. However, we haven't enforced that as evenly as we had originally intended. (The Book Department was sticking with a 1 for 2 rate for a long time, when we thought we were all on the 2 for 5 rate, so the novels got a little ahead of the game product.) The reason Forsaken House is set in early 1374 DR is to clear it out of the Year of Rogue Dragons and Richard Byers' series. They don't really overlap at all, but Phil Athans (my editor) asked me to do it, and I didn't see any reason why I couldn't accommodate him. So, in short: It might be 1373, or it might be 1374. My right-brain sure wishes we'd stick to a rigid chronological order in things like this, but as long as we've got multiple-volume book series running concurrently, I don't think we'll be able to nail down "what is the Realms date TODAY" without contradicting ourselves somewhere. Rich Baker Senior Game Designer RPG R&D Wizards of the Coast, Inc."
Demetrios 10-11-04, 03:28 PM	Here's Rich's response to the question over on the REALMS-L mailing list: Our original plan was for the setting to advance 2 months of "world" time for every 5 months of real time. IIRC, the FRCS came out in November 2001. We're at 35 months since that point, or 7*2 = 14 months after the date given in the FRCS (Shieldmeet, 1372 DR). So the "intended" date would be Eleint of 1373 DR. However, we haven't enforced that as evenly as we had originally intended. (The Book Department was sticking with a 1 for 2 rate for a long time, when we thought we were all on the 2 for 5 rate, so the novels got a little ahead of the game product.) The reason Forsaken House is set in early 1374 DR is to clear it out of the Year of Rogue Dragons and Richard Byers' series. They don't really overlap at all, but Phil Athans (my editor) asked me to do it, and I didn't see any reason why I couldn't accommodate him. So, in short: It might be 1373, or it might be 1374. My right-brain sure wishes we'd stick to a rigid chronological order in things like this, but as long as we've got multiple-volume book series running concurrently, I don't think we'll be able to nail down "what is the Realms date TODAY" without contradicting ourselves somewhere. Rich Baker Senior Game Designer RPG R&D Wizards of the Coast, Inc. Doesn't really answer the question either way, does it? :D I guess the best answer to "What is the current date" is "circa 1373/4". Of course, the whole question becomes moot in August 2005, when the "accessory calendar" moves into 1374 and catches up with the "novel calendar" already there, so perhaps we can drop the discussion until then, when everyone will agree - unless of course a novel set in 1375 DR comes out in the meantime! ;) EDIT: LOL, we both saw it within a minute of each other on the REALMS-L and posted it here! :D
Kuje31 10-11-04, 04:23 PM	Doesn't really answer the question either way, does it? :D I guess the best answer to "What is the current date" is "circa 1373/4". Of course, the whole question becomes moot in August 2005, when the "accessory calendar" moves into 1374 and catches up with the "novel calendar" already there, so perhaps we can drop the discussion until then, when everyone will agree - unless of course a novel set in 1375 DR comes out in the meantime! ;) EDIT: LOL, we both saw it within a minute of each other on the REALMS-L and posted it here! :D Funny about posting it a min apart. :)
Purple Dragon Knight 10-12-04, 03:56 AM	Bottom line: "current date" is the latest date offered by any FR product (whether novel or sourcebook) Now we have a novel saying 1374, so it's 1374... I will also ask you to define the meaning of "current date." My definition is: "Current date = last date used in a FR novel or FR sourcebook." Note that my definition has nothing to do with the date of anyone's campaign: you can set your adventures at any date you want. If your campaign is based mostly on the events described in the FRCS timeline, use early 1372 DR; if your campaign happens on the day when Quenthel Baenre and her party arrive in the Demonweb Pits, use 16 Ukta 1372 DR (last date on the PGtoF timeline). I rarely tie my games SO closely to the "novel events", so to me the exact date is not much of an issue... we're talking about a society who base their activities mainly on the arrival and thawing of the snows in order to harvest/plant crops. Similarly, adventurers in my games don't have pagers and digital watches that constantly "keep them on schedule." They "make haste" to the next town if need be... that's the extent of my recordkeeping. I tried to keep a FR calendar of all PC actions in a campaign last year, and after a year and a half of real-time play, this bookkeeping began to really take away from my enjoyment as a DM, giving me enormous headaches every time I prepared for a game...
Demetrios 10-12-04, 08:17 AM	Bottom line: "current date" is the latest date offered by any FR product (whether novel or sourcebook) Now we have a novel saying 1374, so it's 1374... I will also ask you to define the meaning of "current date." My definition is: "Current date = last date used in a FR novel or FR sourcebook." The problem with that was that for most of the '90s, the "current date" would have been stuck in 1371 DR, as that was the date the novel Pools of Twilight was set in (IIRC). Of course, during that period, absolutely no other product was set anywhere near that date, with most stuff in the early- to mid-1360s DR. PoT had this strange date due to the fact it was following the story of the children of characters who had appeared in much more "contemporary" novels, so it's possible (though probably not to likely) that this sort of thing could happen again. Then of course, there is the possiblity of some sort of time-travel novel, in which present-day characters vist the setting's future. If a novel were to be set in, say, 1500 DR, would that mean that the "current date" would be set to that year?
Kuje31 10-12-04, 12:50 PM	The problem with that was that for most of the '90s, the "current date" would have been stuck in 1371 DR, as that was the date the novel Pools of Twilight was set in (IIRC). Of course, during that period, absolutely no other product was set anywhere near that date, with most stuff in the early- to mid-1360s DR. PoT had this strange date due to the fact it was following the story of the children of characters who had appeared in much more "contemporary" novels, so it's possible (though probably not to likely) that this sort of thing could happen again. Then of course, there is the possiblity of some sort of time-travel novel, in which present-day characters vist the setting's future. If a novel were to be set in, say, 1500 DR, would that mean that the "current date" would be set to that year? But as I told you TSR had a different policy on how they dated products. So no that Pools of Novel didn't advance the date since it was set so far ahead of most of the other novels and sourcebooks. But WOTC has clearly stated in the 3e campaign book that sourcebooks and novels advance the timeline, which is why they have kept such a tight leash on thier novels and sourcebooks. No the book set in the past wouldn't decrease the timeline either, as I have explained to you before. Which is why the Drizzt novels don't decrease the timeline either, or why the new short stories in the new novel about dragons doesn't do that either. Only if a novel or sourcebook advances the timeline would that date be the current date but one set in the past wouldn't decrease the timeline. To PDK: And I agree with you PDK in that exact time in game doesn't exist, but I disagree that a lot of people wouldn't know the month and year but then again it depends on what nation they are from, etc. :)
Demetrios 10-12-04, 03:49 PM	But as I told you TSR had a different policy on how they dated products. So no that Pools of Novel didn't advance the date since it was set so far ahead of most of the other novels and sourcebooks. But he never specified TSR or WotC in his post, only the Forgotten Realms: Bottom line: "current date" is the latest date offered by any FR product (whether novel or sourcebook) Since the products made during the TSR years were indisputedly still FR products, my complaint still stands... BTW, as I said above, shouldn't we stop bickering uselessly over this until August 2005, when everyone can be in agreement?
Kuje31 10-12-04, 04:09 PM	But he never specified TSR or WotC in his post, only the Forgotten Realms: Since the products made during the TSR years were indisputedly still FR products, my complaint still stands... BTW, as I said above, shouldn't we stop bickering uselessly over this until August 2005, when everyone can be in agreement? Why would Rich specify a company that NO LONGER EXISTS? Of course he didn't specify, because most people would assume he was talking about WOTC's policy since TSR NO LONGER EXISTS. No your complaint doesn't stand because TSR DOESN'T EXIST and WOTC has CHANGED the policy that a company that DOESN'T EXIST any longer used to use. OY! So WHY in all the gods names would Rich post info about a policy from a company that hasn't EXISTED for over 4+ years?!?! And btw Rich isn't the one that said the second line you quoted. Purple Dragon Knight is the one that said that. So please stop trying to win a arguement by using text that Rich never said!
Demetrios 10-12-04, 04:17 PM	Why would Rich specify a company that NO LONGER EXISTS? Of course he didn't specify, because most people would assume he was talking about WOTC's policy since TSR NO LONGER EXISTS. No your complaint doesn't stand because TSR DOESN'T EXIST and WOTC has CHANGED the policy that a company that DOESN'T EXIST any more used to use. OY! Oh come on! Of course, it no longer exists, but it existed at the time we are talking about, and to discuss its policies in reference to the period when it actually existed is a valid topic. What you are trying to say in your post is like someone entering an ongoing discussion about Soviet foreign policy and insisting that to discuss that nation (or its policies of the time) in any way is invalid as IT NO LONGER EXISTS. And anyway, I wasn't refering to Rich, but to Purple Dragon Knight's post. The post you quoted was mine from 7:17 this morning, which clearly has "Originally Posted by Purple Dragon Knight" at its start.
Kuje31 10-12-04, 04:24 PM	Oh come on! Of course, it no longer exists, but it existed at the time we are talking about, and to discuss its policies in reference to the period when it actually existed is a valid topic. What you are trying to say in your post is like someone entering an ongoing discussion about Soviet foreign policy and insisting that to discuss that nation (or its policies of the time) in any way is invalid as IT NO LONGER EXISTS. No actually it doesn't exist in the time we are talking about because TSR went bankrupt during 2e. So again WOTC has A DIFFERENT policy about advancing the timeline since it's in the 3E campaign setting and Rich posted it on the mailing list. SO OF COURSE he's talking about WOTC's current policy. This is no different then any of the other policy and retcon changes WOTC has done to the setting.
Talrinys 10-12-04, 04:34 PM	Well my definition of current date = last date specified in any official FR product, that is 1374, novels has always been a part of the game, so why should they have any less say now?
Kuje31 10-12-04, 05:10 PM	Well my definition of current date = last date specified in any official FR product, that is 1374, novels has always been a part of the game, so why should they have any less say now? Exactly. :)
darkwave 10-14-04, 05:20 PM	At what point in the "real world" timeline did TSR stop existing anyway... :D :D :D
Thoth_Amon 10-19-04, 09:26 AM	So have we established the year is 1374? My group started new pcs last night and there was confusion on the year. Pcs were changed at the last minute because of current events... :weep:
Demetrios 10-19-04, 09:54 AM	So have we established the year is 1374? My group started new pcs last night and there was confusion on the year. Pcs were changed at the last minute because of current events... :weep: From what Rich Baker says: "So, in short: It might be 1373, or it might be 1374. My right-brain sure wishes we'd stick to a rigid chronological order in things like this,but as long as we've got multiple-volume book series running concurrently, I don't think we'll be able to nail down "what is the Realms date TODAY" without contradicting ourselves somewhere." - not even they are sure at WotC!