"After something akin to a drought over the last couple years, I'm not sure if Realms fans are prepared for the deluge about to befall them!
Lots and lots of juicy Realmslore coming your way folks!"
It's probably stuff that is only compatible with the lore of the 4E Shattered Realms. Do Not Want.
I'd rather see the designers concentrate on an entirely new world setting.
Considering that they basically nuked the Forgotten Realms with the spellplague, destroying various nations and damaging other lands, then gave us the 100-year time jump which effectively killed off all the NPCs and many gods we loved from prior sourcebooks and novels, and followed this with the drought of minimal support (mostly just some sparse articles in DDI), I'd agree... it's just about time for a deluge.
It's probably stuff that is only compatible with the lore of the 4E Shattered Realms. Do Not Want.
I'd rather see the designers concentrate on an entirely new world setting.
Oh hush, don's go so bitter.
The changes actually had been for good I say, only badly made perhaps. And I was a bigass FR fan - the FANDUMBNESS turned me off partially, not WOTC. Such posts, by example - 'bahhhh, they ruined it!'. UGH - have you even tried to look ath the good things there is there, the new age and its fabulous rping possibiities?
In any way, its like I say for shall I say, grognards.. You don,t like the new stuff - don't use it. Your old books still are there. You are not augmenting the level of discussion this way, sour, sour man.
That said, I found the 4e Forgotten Realms Player's Guide and Campaign Guide very bland and unable to pull me into the setting, unlike later purchases for Eberron and Dark Sun.
BUT, they redeemed themselves with the Neverwinter Campaign Guide. That was a glorious book. And now, they made the smart move and kept Kara-Tur in The Realms. We might not be seeing "The Forbidden City" or such places in the Core Setting that sound Oriental Adventuresy, but this gives a wealth of material to support the Realms setting. In Magazine form. And the class stuff is easily transmutable. BRING ON THE KANJI RUNEPRIESTS AND NINJA ASSASSINS, BABY, YEAH!!
P.S. Not to mention that the Honour System works for Nerathi Chivalry, the Harper's Code, and Thieves' Codes as well as the classic Bushido. Smart work there, Chris Sims.
You don,t like the new stuff - don't use it. Your old books still are there. You are not augmenting the level of discussion this way, sour, sour man.
Except that you will never ever get any new stuff, since everything new will based on the terrible changes
You don,t like the new stuff - don't use it. Your old books still are there. You are not augmenting the level of discussion this way, sour, sour man.
Except that you will never ever get any new stuff, since everything new will based on the terrible changes
That would be the same terrible changes that brought my group and I back to the Realms after a long long time away (read 15+ years). Each to their own i guess.
You don,t like the new stuff - don't use it. Your old books still are there. You are not augmenting the level of discussion this way, sour, sour man.
Except that you will never ever get any new stuff, since everything new will based on the terrible changesThat would be the same terrible changes that brought my group and I back to the Realms after a long long time away (read 15+ years). Each to their own i guess.
Sure, each to their own, however WotC should primarily care about the numbers of each. Since 4e all three once vibrant FR boards I knew are pretty much dead (down to a single digit number of post per day is the most active of them), including the official WotC boards.
Maybe all the new gaming groups 4e FR catched for the realms are merely quiet and content to keep their own circles, but the greater online community is pretty much dead.
Oh hush, don's go so bitter.
The changes actually had been for good I say, only badly made perhaps. And I was a bigass FR fan - the FANDUMBNESS turned me off partially, not WOTC. Such posts, by example - 'bahhhh, they ruined it!'. UGH - have you even tried to look ath the good things there is there, the new age and its fabulous rping possibiities?
In any way, its like I say for shall I say, grognards.. You don,t like the new stuff - don't use it. Your old books still are there. You are not augmenting the level of discussion this way, sour, sour man.
Keep sucking on that dry teat, maybe you can squeeze out one more drop! Doesn't matter that it's been dry for years, keep hope alive!
And this is why I wish at times WOTC nuke the realms, destroying it all into oblivion - better dead than an undead corpse kept along for canon ayatollahs or hardcore grognards, never changing, never progressing.
You should go to Candlekeep. And leave it alone.
> a single digit number of post per day is the most active of them), including
> the official WotC boards.
Well, I know that I started to lose interest in the FR during later half of the 3E era, before it was nuked, in part because of the overload of content (much of it being novel-driven revisionism, which didn't help), and in part because the FR forums had come to feel downright hostile to anyone who wasn't a canon-warrior (and part of the 'in crowd' in any given forum, to boot).
"I don't want to deal with the setting if it means dealing with fans like these," managed to push me from buying almost all of the FR-setting books to buying none of them toward the end of 3E, and my interest in the setting has never recovered.
--
Now, there is another problem: conceptually, the FR was tied very heavily to old-E assumptions and older fantasy tropes that don't necessarily mesh well with the modern game or peoples' expectations of the fantasy genre nowadays.
It's the same reason why many other older settings were regarded as interesting or innovative at the time they were released and are now met with something resembling a yawn.
You can critic the creators, but the fans.. No. Never. Even when the fandom can be VERY nasty at times...
And this is why I wish at times WOTC nuke the realms, destroying it all into oblivion - better dead than an undead corpse kept along for canon ayatollahs or hardcore grognards, never changing, never progressing.
You should go to Candlekeep. And leave it alone.
Nope, shan't. If you don't like hearing opinions that differ from your own, perhaps you should consider whether Internet forums are the place you want to be.
And this is why I wish at times WOTC nuke the realms, destroying it all into oblivion - better dead than an undead corpse kept along for canon ayatollahs or hardcore grognards, never changing, never progressing.
Except that these canon ayatollahs and hardcore grognards made it the biggest cash cow among the official settings and WotC's effort to replace them with someone else while keeping milking the cash cow didn't work out.
Also the realms were ever changing and progressing, it progressing at an app. even rate with real time. From it's first publishing until the spellplague the realms had progresse around 20 years of realmtime. In this the FR is actually more progressive than Eberron which is meant to be "frozen in time".
The "you're suddenly 150 years later, many things have happened but don't really want to tell you most of them" is what drove away so many realms fans
Snarky? Yeah. But the rancor shown for such a.. fun but honestly not without fault thing (FR, ALL editions) as supposedly 'broken' is.. sad. And so, rise a rancor back.. 'if you hate it so much, how about scrapping it for good, so you will say naught more?'
And I guess you think the ones who like the changes, like me, are.. 'missguided'. To be moderate there.
If you don't buy any books anyway, why should WOTC care? Unless NO ONE buy the books... This is the way how capitalism work (and I am generaly quite critical of it, let's say).
And this is why I wish at times WOTC nuke the realms, destroying it all into oblivion - better dead than an undead corpse kept along for canon ayatollahs or hardcore grognards, never changing, never progressing.
Except that these canon ayatollahs and hardcore grognards made it the biggest cash cow among the official settings and WotC's effort to replace them with someone else while keeping milking the cash cow didn't work out.
The FR cash cow died quite some time ago, at least from an RPG point of view. The vast majority of FLGS I visit have entire shelving units devoted to unsold FR sourcebooks from the end of 2e and throughout 3e. These did not sell anywhere close to what WotC hoped and a lot of FLGS lost a TON of money on them. This is the real reason why WotC has failed to publish heaps of material for the realms or any other setting.
Novels continue to tick along as a source of revenue, but calling anything without Drizzt in it a "cash cow" is wishful thinking.
And this is why I wish at times WOTC nuke the realms, destroying it all into oblivion - better dead than an undead corpse kept along for canon ayatollahs or hardcore grognards, never changing, never progressing.
Except that these canon ayatollahs and hardcore grognards made it the biggest cash cow among the official settings and WotC's effort to replace them with someone else while keeping milking the cash cow didn't work out.
The FR cash cow died quite some time ago, at least from an RPG point of view. The vast majority of FLGS I visit have entire shelving units devoted to unsold FR sourcebooks from the end of 2e and throughout 3e. These did not sell anywhere close to what WotC hoped and a lot of FLGS lost a TON of money on them. This is the real reason why WotC has failed to publish heaps of material for the realms or any other setting.
Novels continue to tick along as a source of revenue, but calling anything without Drizzt in it a "cash cow" is wishful thinking.
You're right, FR as a cash cow died just about 3 yrs ago, when 4E was released. Why buy old 2E-3E supplements when those systems are no longer officially supported?
But I do fully understand about the slowing down of FR during the end of 3E. Most supplements were merely re-prints of older supplements, with perhaps 5% new material that was primarily crunch. That, far more than a declining interest, was the real reason sales started declining.
We kept asking for NEW fluff, for them to detail untouched or minimally detailed regions in the Realms. What we got was Waterdeep and Cormyr, again and again and again. Which is fine if you like Cormyr, but good grief.
Brian R James via Twitter: "After something akin to a drought over the last couple years, I'm not sure if Realms fans are prepared for the deluge about to befall them! Lots and lots of juicy Realmslore coming your way folks!"
This is great news!
And never mind the jerks in this forum; there are always going to be people who cry over milk spilled years ago.
If you spot anything else from BRJ, please feel free to post it here!
You should go to Candlekeep. And leave it alone.
I dunno. Candlekeep has seen something of a renaissance with regard to 4E Realms talk.
People I was absolutely, positively convinced would never touch the 4E D&D game or the 4E Realms (because they said as much) are now playing it and talking about it on the CK forums.
Whereas I would have heartily seconded your recommendation, now I'm not sure I want to ruin the experience at Candlekeep by pushing people with nothing but negative, whiney things to say about the Realms onto Candlekeep's forums.
Please keep your posts polite, respectful, and on-topic, and refrain from making personal attacks.
It's the same reason why many other older settings were regarded as interesting or innovative at the time they were released and are now met with something resembling a yawn.
FR's was interesting because it was full of information, details, unique and engaging NPCs and evolved with time instead of being frozen. It is what set it appart and made it so popular. It wasn't popular because some parts looked liked LotR.
4e changed what set FR appart. Now it's just a typical fantasy setting frozen in time. With floating islands. /yawn
Désolé, mais non.
FR, as much as a fan I am/was, was NEVER actually that special. Well written, solid, lively... but not that creative or unique. In fact, this edition, 'weird it out', made it a bit more cretaive at least. More magic in a good sense. (And falling in bad times, grim times, can be a good thing story and dramatic wise.)
Eberron was 10x more creative and unique than FR ever was. that's the truth. And creativity so was not its selling point, as you noted it.
Also, there was problems surrounding thinsg you mentioned, and other things. the changes had actually good things to them.
At least, give it a damn chance, with new eyes untied to canon-ism, and open mind. It is solid fun. Not creative a lot even now - if improved - but great on its own.
Sad to see some reactionism to the whole deal, the love child - the guys at WOTC staff LOVE D&D and FR - refused and dumped like this.
Eberron was 10x more creative and unique than FR ever was. that's the truth.
In my opinion, Eberron's only real clame to fame is that it was designed (or rather, selected for publication) to be different than the Realms
I respect the fact that you find Eberron to be 10x more creative and unique than FR. But factually, content from the Realms has informed content for regular D&D and anchored the D&D game for over two decades. The Realms have simply been around longer.
That said, Eberron is one hell of an awesome campaign setting, particularly because it broke new ground and allowed D&D to appeal to a wider audience. I've had a ton of fun playing in it.
In terms of preference, I find both settings to be unique. I wish the Realms did more with Giants like Eberron did.
I would welcome more Realmslore as it is inevitably story-rich and is placed on top of a well-developed backdrop. The setting's appeal for me though, has diminished over the years, during 3E first of all, and most dramatically with the release of 4E.
The problem with the setting IMHO, is that too many authors are asked to write novels in it and each one (with some exceptions) comes up with (or is assigned) their own world-shattering event that dramatically changes the setting. I appreciate a dynamic setting that evolves but mainly in the sort of terms set out in the monthly events described in the Cyclopedia of the Realms in the original boxed set. That sort of development, with story hooks and mysteries, I think is excellent to make a setting dynamic. A world-shattering event every 3 or 4 years, on the other hand........
For me, the Realms loses credibility as a "realistic" fantasy setting due to the relatively mundane historical events in the decades, and even centuries, that lead up to 1357DR (the D&D starting point) and then the rapid frequency of major, world-shaking events that make up the next twenty to thirty years. I accept that some are down to edition changes but as WotC has demonstrated with Eberron, you can change editions with a setting without destroying half of what was there before.
That said, the setting is still well written and incredibly rich. I'd just start in 1357DR and make up my own history from then on
.Devas are cool, but the implementation was a mess that made little sense, given that Aasmir were angel blooded humans, not reincarnated angels. Going so hard core in sensless destruction was unneedful, many of thier goals could be achieved far more moderately without alienating so many people.
Now that being said the novels have began the process of rebuilding FR after nuclear war, er I mean spell plague. I say many of these novels are much better and exciting then many of the earlier original novels. The Key of Stars, Broken Chain, Griffin Brotherhood, some of the waterdeep stuff, that swordmage series, even the Drizzt's Neverwinter was the best since the one were he fights the sister that raised him, with some cool new characters (which bodes well for the game). Some others as well, even that one that was likened to romeo and juilet (which wasn't a good analogy at all, this book was way better). I'd look up the name latter when I get home. At the local "festhall" now.
As to the theme of the FR its in the name, forgotten realms, aka ancient history, its this emphasis on the importance of history, lost and resurrect civilizations and races and the interactions between this growing history and the present that defines the realms. Other key subthemes are the living interventionalism of the FR pantheon and its politics which both defines it current religious politics and the evolution and demise of ancient civilizations.
Eberron is magic stream punk, with some uniqie twists such as the Quori. Darksun post apocpaleptic(miss spelled), Dragon Lance sagas, Planescape philosphy and the afterlife, Spelljammer space ships midevil fiction style, Ravenloft horror.