Instead of getting at least some detail of this the history section of the book gives a single paragraph?? I know they wanted to start the campaign fresh and leave plenty up to the DM to decide but leaving a full 50 years of history un-covered except in side-notes within the rest of the book seems like I am missing something. I might expect such side-notes and such if there was already a place with the info, thus having no reason to detail out everything. Is there suppose to be a more detailed history in the players guide? Is there one that was posted on the wizards website/by one of the authors or something I just haven't come across yet?
As it is, it seems very hard for me to jump the campaign to an arbitrary new date without some detail on what happen between the last known facts and the start date. It seems very hard for me to prepare a basic write up of what the players would know about the past or ect if all I have to go on are side-notes and asides. This can't be how WOTC wanted us to handle updating things.
Unfortunately for some (or fortunately for others) this is exactly how the designers wanted the setting to be presented. The current year is DR 1479 and that is when the guide assumes you will begin the new campaign. One of the purposes of 4E was to simplify the rules overall and give more of a carte blanche power to the DM. This is why they left out so many details. IMO, I prefer to have more lore then less. This is because I feel it is easier to adapt, add, or leave out material as opposed to creating it from scratch. I also think having more lore would have helped a wider audience of DMs. But that is just my opinion.
This is why 4ED FR sales are going to be quite less than what the designers are hoping for! Thank Erevan!!
Few of the sins of the father, are visited upon the son,
Hearts have been hard, our hands have been clenched into fists too long.
Our sons will never be soldiers, our daughters will never need guns.
These are the years between,
These are the years that were hard fought and won.
Contracts torn at the edges, old signatures stained with tears,
Seasons of war and peace, these should not be forgotten years!
Still it aches like tetanus, it reeks of politics.
How many dreams remain? This is a feeling too strong to contain ...
The hardest years, the darkest years, the roarin years, the fallen years.
These should not be forgotten years!
The hardest years, the wildest years, the desperate and divided years.
We will remember, these should not be forgotten years!
Beautiful!! Beautiful!! Both of you!
I was thinking' Down With The Sickness myself, but it is a bit Disturbed for these boards.
http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/queenofthedamned/downwiththesickness.htm
But no!! Ooh ah ah ah ah! :evillaugh
I don't know. Seemed to fit with all these months of us posting, thinking/hoping that we were being listened to by the design team.
That is one reason I find most of the discussions, even the ones I post in myself, quite extraordinary. People post as if doing so and either proving or disproving or even just presenting a point of view will make any difference whatsoever.
The design team have set their course based on marketing and the perception of a setting rather than what can be explained in terms of logic. They are doing what they believe is right for the setting, not for us. We are the vocal minority and in the end, except to each other, our hopes, feelings, desires and even dreams for this world we share... are little more than temporary shapes thrown up in wind-borne dust.
What does it matter what we decide between ourselves? It affects nothing. It changes nothing. whatever we do here means nothing to them, only to us. I am not suggesting this is a bad thing. I am just suggesting that it is.
So yes, let's carry on trying to build a home in the new setting. The why's don't matter anymore. It is just a case of the ant-farm building as much as they can before the owners decide to shake the tank again.
That is one reason I find most of the discussions, even the ones I post in myself, quite extraordinary. People post as if doing so and either proving or disproving or even just presenting a point of view will make any difference whatsoever.
The design team have set their course based on marketing and the perception of a setting rather than what can be explained in terms of logic. They are doing what they believe is right for the setting, not for us. We are the vocal minority and in the end, except to each other, our hopes, feelings, desires and even dreams for this world we share... are little more than temporary shapes thrown up in wind-borne dust.
What does it matter what we decide between ourselves? It affects nothing. It changes nothing. whatever we do here means nothing to them, only to us. I am not suggesting this is a bad thing. I am just suggesting that it is.
So yes, let's carry on trying to build a home in the new setting. The why's don't matter anymore. It is just a case of the ant-farm building as much as they can before the owners decide to shake the tank again.
Not quite the point I was making, my man (chick thing)--though the lyrics could throw it off a bit.
When rumor of 4e FR first hit the stage, lots of us were talking with people at WotC.
For months.
You would expect somebody to listen, simply because we were their most hard core customers. In fact, they said they were listening to us.
But then we get this.
WotC was never listening--never cared.
I won't be blaming Richard Baker or Brian James for this, just WotC. As a corporation, they failed
miserably. It's like Coke trying to taste like Pepsi, simply because their sales are lagging and Pepsi is gaining in sales.
This is why 4ED FR sales are going to be quite less than what the designers are hoping for! Thank Erevan!!
Don't worry it will be ok.
WOTC does not listen to people on the net whether they wanted the change or to those that opposed it. They look at the "books". That is what affects there decisions like any good company. Denial won't make this factor just disappear.
Not quite the point I was making, my man (chick thing)--though the lyrics could throw it off a bit.
Man. Although the androgeny of my name has lead to a couple of people suggesting I am female... which has amused the hell out of me.
Oh I know what you were getting at, hence my point about listening to marketing and not us. I was talking more about now and the future. Given their record of responding to our concerns with concilliatory language... and changing little, my point was that no matter what we say now, that is still what is going to happen.
They have practically handed 'victory' to us. :D
The FRCG is a confusing mess, so the first thing anyone with a question is going to do is go online and try to find answers...
And they'll find us.
Buy it's a bittersweet victory... at what cost?
at what cost...
but if you ask me, that price is too high. -some captain off of one of the gundam series
A strange Game. The only way to win, is by not to play.- wargames computer
What does it matter what we decide between ourselves? It affects nothing. It changes nothing. whatever we do here means nothing to them, only to us. I am not suggesting this is a bad thing. I am just suggesting that it is.
The above quote is so beyond the truth that it's hard not to break the CoC over and over in response to it.
Hyperbole, assumption...these words don't even scratch the surface.
One of our number was able to alter the list of Greater Gods found in the FR Campaign Guide with one single post to the The one and only "Ask the Realms Authors/Designers thread.
Which just goes to show you that A) the designers do read these forums, B) careful reasoning and thought do far more to influence others than rants, C) blatant negativism is often the equivalent of prevarication.
-The designers have stated that they aren't going to give the details of the events in those transitory 104 years. Except in certain novels.
I don't think they have said it would be in novels, although its gonna be
The above quote is so beyond the truth that it's hard not to break the CoC over and over in response to it.
Yours, mine or the third? Also that is part of a larger post that is part of a larger conversation. Do you intentionally pick the nastiest sections from large posts to concentrate on?
One of our number was able to alter the list of Greater Gods found in the FR Campaign Guide with one single post to the The one and only "Ask the Realms Authors/Designers thread.
Which just goes to show you that A) the designers do read these forums, B) careful reasoning and thought do far more to influence others than rants, C) blatant negativism is often the equivalent of prevarication.
I was here at the time, I read the post, I was impressed by its arguments. I was even more astonished by the result. Not least because, to my knowledge it stands alone in the 10 months I have been reading this forum... pretty much daily.
Let's deal with your points one by one shall we?
A) No, it proves they read the thread directed specifically to them on a permanent sticky at the top of the forum. You are generalising. Why is it that we see almost no WotC_X activity in any other thread if all are the focus of such attention?
B) Oh I agree, which is why if you will check the post and the conversation the tone wasn't rantish, it was melancholy, about the pointlessness of argument on the basis of proving points... you know. The thing you are currently attempting to do at my expense? I have also posted in other threads attempting to forestall pro/mid/anti wars... and I have contacted people on both sides by PM to see if less inflammatory language could be used so as not to prevent further reaction. I see that you didn't attempt this before chewing on me publicly.
C) Yes, I must remember to delete my post in the "Things I like about the FRCG" thread
.Twice in two days? Really.
I don't think they have said it would be in novels, although its gonna be
-One of the novels recently announced, being written by Bruce Cordell, is taking place during the 'Spellplague Times'.
-One of the novels recently announced, being written by Bruce Cordell, is taking place during the 'Spellplague Times'.
Nothing more than what they are doing with the Haunted Lands trilogy.
-One of the novels recently announced, being written by Bruce Cordell, is taking place during the 'Spellplague Times'.
just sayin's that I thought they weren't gonna touch on it and now they are
just sayin's that I thought they weren't gonna touch on it and now they are
Indeed. Well, I for one hope that the characters that died get a proper send off.
If we manage to get a few more books detailing the last days and the continuing futures of El & The Girls then I, for one, will be a damn sight happier about this malarkey.
Indeed. Well, I for one hope that the characters that died get a proper send off.
.
I don't think they arr doing that. There is the Thay series which will have nothing to do with those characters and a Bruce Cordell series that will deal with new characters
Nothing more than what they are doing with the Haunted Lands trilogy.
-Right.
just sayin's that I thought they weren't gonna touch on it and now they are
-Does this surprise you?
I'll just wrap up all my own thoughts, to make myself feel better anywho!
I had bought the book with the hope of being able to use it to introduce my current group to the setting. The fact that they pushed the plot line forward somewhat is great for this, it helps me avoid having to have read every single piece of material ever published about the setting to be able to feel comfortable running it properly. I was quite looking forward to being able to jump into a fresh game to introduce my players to the realms.
As it is though, I can't do that, speaking from the perspective of someone who had planned to utilize the new material. I've got information from 100 something years ago, too much information some might argue, I've got a picture of what the world is like 'today'.
I 'like' that they shot the campaign forward some, it means that knowledge of the nit-picky details of the campaign setting before hand aren't as important/needed. The overblown amount of detail of the old realms made it a very daunting task for those of us who were fairly new to the setting to run a game in, especially when players know more about it then we do. Either we knew the setting as well or better then our players, so we could get it all right, or we invoked the 'that isn't how it works/what happen in my game' thus tossing all the info/knowledge our players had gained/come to love.
Now though..now I don't have -enough- information to run the realms. I am sure the intention is for me to take the snapshot of where things now stand, and fill in all the details as it suits me to do so, yet this is 'not' what I wanted to do. I wanted to run a realms game in the new setting, not one of my own creation. As it is the material in the book is bettered suited to be picked piece by piece as it suits me to do so and inserted into my own setting, this it seems is what I am going to be doing with it hehe. If I try and run it as is, and fill in the back story myself, inevitably they will release either a novel, or a source book or something that will render my own version of things no longer usable if I want to stick with the source material. (yes I know they said they won't but does anyone really believe that?)
I was ready to take the game as 'the new realms'. Something for which I didn't need to know the source material from previous editions too run/bring to life and ect. Yet the most important pieces of information for running any setting is missing. When my players ask me 'what happen 10 years ago in Waterdeep?" I have no response for them that i don't make up. When I get asked what happen to Helm, or how Torm died or ect, I can't say. I can't even tell them how the world came to be in the state its in. I've got plenty of info if I want to know how the world was 100 years ago..but how we got to where we are now I have no clue.
Am I incapable of providing responses to those questions? Of course not. Yet now, it will all be unique and variable. I can't run a game in the realms anymore, because my realms could easily be markedly different from someone else's. Is that wrong? Again no, people run home brewed games every day. Yet I bought the book wanting to run the forgotten realms, a official campaign setting which has standards and history that everyone can enjoy and be a part of. I consider myself one of the people wizards was marketing this book for, at least I thought I was. Now I am left to wonder 'who exactly is this book for, and how do the people who produced it expect it to be used?" Consider me shifted to cynic. At least know I know to wait to buy the 4th edition Ebberon (spelled it wrong I'm sure) until after I've read the book. I would think they couldn't mess that up (as they arn't advancing the time line I don't think?) but then again....
--Does this surprise you?
no
I was ready to take the game as 'the new realms'. Something for which I didn't need to know the source material from previous editions too run/bring to life and ect. Yet the most important pieces of information for running any setting is missing. When my players ask me 'what happen 10 years ago in Waterdeep?" I have no response for them that i don't make up. When I get asked what happen to Helm, or how Torm died or ect, I can't say. I can't even tell them how the world came to be in the state its in. I've got plenty of info if I want to know how the world was 100 years ago..but how we got to where we are now I have no clue.
Am I incapable of providing responses to those questions? Of course not. Yet now, it will all be unique and variable. I can't run a game in the realms anymore, because my realms could easily be markedly different from someone else's. Is that wrong? Again no, people run home brewed games every day. Yet I bought the book wanting to run the forgotten realms, a official campaign setting which has standards and history that everyone can enjoy and be a part of. I consider myself one of the people wizards was marketing this book for, at least I thought I was. Now I am left to wonder 'who exactly is this book for, and how do the people who produced it expect it to be used?" Consider me shifted to cynic. At least know I know to wait to buy the 4th edition Ebberon (spelled it wrong I'm sure) until after I've read the book. I would think they couldn't mess that up (as they arn't advancing the time line I don't think?) but then again....
-Canon is the glue that binds.