Just a question for those of you who use the D&D game system (any edition) to play in the Realms: Do you also use charts, roleplaying aids, game rules, Game Mastering advice or any other material from any other rules system or non-D&D campaign setting for your Realms game?
I ask because I’ve found the 7th Sea campaign setting (by AEG) to be very useful in setting up and adjudicating encounters between the player characters and Cormyr’s nobility at the Royal Court in Suzail (this is for my 3.5 Realms game).
The Montaigne sourcebook (Nations of Théah: Book 3: Montaigne) in particular has good rules for interacting with nobles.
Also, for those of you who play in other worlds besides the Realms, what systems do you use or what systems have you come across that have rules you’ve felt were good enough to port over into another game entirely?
Call me crazy, call me a traitor, call me whatever. I really enjoy playing D&D in the 4E Realms.
I like leaving the house every other Monday to go to game with just two rulebooks (FRCG, FRPG) and a binder with my adventure and DM’s screen in it.
I don’t even need to bring the core rulebooks since my buddies have them.
Contrast this with the veritable wooden log of books I carry around for my 3.5 Realms game.
I like the simplicity of it. I’m a very experienced DM and I enjoy making stuff up as I go along. Having just two and three page explanations in the FRCG of the places in the Realms I like to use makes it easy for me to build on the information therein.
I like the challenge of it. When things change in the Realms, it puts players and DMs and Realmsfans (that don’t play D&D) on the spot. Some don’t like to see changes, sure. But I do when it’s a wholesale set of changes due mostly to the advancement of time.
I like returned Abeir.
MarkusTay has asked me in another thread why I wanted to go “down south” in my 4E Realms game.
Two big reasons are Tymanther and Akanûl. A third is the Abolethic Sovereignty, which conveniently lay in between Cormyr (where my campaign is at) and those two realms.
I enjoy the change of flavor. When you’ve gamed in the Realms as long as I and my players have, a change of pace is very enjoyable. It lets us treat places and things we “know” about the Realms as unknowns again. Add to that our choice to treat both our ongoing 3.5 and 4E Realms games as being in the same Realms instead of separate and you have an additional layer of uncertainty owing to the unique path our 3.5 game has already taken.
That’s fun because discovering something new or discovering a big change in the Realms during play is always a blast and so a big motivation to play.
But most of all I like the advanced timeline. That’s got to be one of best fuels for creative DM thought out there for DMs that are somewhat familiar with the Realms. It basically pushes you to consider the new setting from a “what’s transpired?” point of view.
When Manshoon the vampire has lived for a century through the Spellplague, consolidated his power over Westgate and the surviving Zhentarim, what does that mean? How did he do it? What secrets of magic and of returned Abeir has he uncovered? Is he dealing with the Eminence of Aurant or the Ironfell Council? Has he restarted any of his long term plots that were thwarted when all of his clones awoke? Have any of those plots come to fruition?
Basically, Manshoon being Manshoon, what can he have accomplished in 100 years beyond what the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide tells us?
My bet is: A LOT.
That’s what’s so fun about it for me as a DM. All these ideas and possibilities constitute fun thought exercises and are the seeds of future adventures and campaign arcs.
I invite those of you who have pondered things as I have to include your thoughts here.
I invite those of you who enjoy playing in the 4E Realms to post why you enjoy it, especially if your reasons are different then mine.
Lastly, let’s be careful not to let an edition war ignite here. Webster has the power to close threads and he will use it if we give him reason to.
Then I stopped using them the last time I ran a game... because they were so friggin' detailed.
Go figure.
BTW I love 7th Sea - thats a great set of Pirate-Campaign rules there, even if the setting itself is THE most (RW) derivitive thing I've ever seen. If you want to use guns at all in your FR campaign, or just want to crank the tech up a notch, then I suggest porting things over from them (which is easy - it's D20).
They even have a sourcebook on the Fey - something we wanted and never got.
Its magic system is second to none, in my opinion, and is the defining game to play if wizardry is of great interest. One of the things I really like about the system is that it contrasts just a sliver of extremely high magic--surrounding the players in large part--against mostly a larger and otherwise very low magic world. It allows the players to begin as powerful agents, complex and flawed and dangerous, right from the start, but pits them against a core environment that is awkward and suspicious (even hostile) regarding them from the beginning.
Recently, I pulled out the 3rd and 4th edition copies of Faeries and Faeries, Revised from the same, looking to potentially use them as an inspiration or creative tap for upcoming sessions our current group will have in the Feywild, and with its more sinister elements.
I don't intend any sort of direct transposition, from Ars Magica to D&D, as I want to capture the D&D Fey much as they are described so far. For all that there is quite a bit of correlation between the two and I almost wonder if some of D&D's Fey and Feywild weren't at least partially influenced by Ars Magica already. I wouldn't be surprised, in any case.
Talk about realism... you even needed to roll for mental ilnesses when the charcter is first generated...
I loved every minute of it. :D
18DELTA (FOR LORD CYRIC'S GLORY!) ;)
Nor did anyone else's charcter, for that matter.
You also had to roll-up your horoscope at the begnning, which would give you various penalties and bonuses to experience, depending on what you were doing (in other words, you could get a 5%-15% bonus to 'fighting', while having a 5%-15% penalty to 'using magic' - but only in regards to experience gained for that encounter).
Talk about a system that easily bogged down - but we had a super-human DM who handled a group of 12-16 players (at one time!) while running that wonderful abomination.
I haven't seen the likes of him since.
-That sounds like one complicated ruleset you played there Markus. ;) :P
18DELTA (CYRIC RULES AND MYSTRA DROOLS!) :P
@ Mr Miscellany: there's a free PDF on AEGs website that covers the nobility and provides rules for social combat. You might find it interesting - actually, a lot of people might. I thought it was good, and would port it over if needed.
Basically, this text got raped and pillaged for an FR campaign or 2 in the Northdark (Underdark) where the Drow PrC's therein (Drow House Weapon Master, Surface Raider, Avenger) were awesome. Really well built. Duergars had 1 or 2 that weren't bad either. Occaisional feats were nice too.
However, the telling moment was rulings on Underdark radiations, mutations specifically. This synched up nicely w/ conveniently "unstable" faerezz's in Faerun, and wouldn't you know it, some of our gallant heroes wound up looking like they grew up near Chernobyl.
Shadowrun to D&D if you can believe it. Add libs on combat, cover specifically. For instance, the more cover you take, the harder it is to return fire basically. Encourages more initiative/design.
Their item acquisition system made way more sense to me too. It basically led to more creative uses of Gather Info, Diplomacy and the like to score items, magic ones often, that you can't buy "off the rack" necessarilly.
Vampire: tM got a nod here and there on some occult stuff & "ghouling" (Charm/Dominte being somewhat passe'). Tzimisce vampire Vicissitude made for some nice abberration powers & spells. Giovannis helped foster further depth to Speak w/ Dead, etc. And of course, Gangrel Wolf Claws made for a nice adjustment to the 1/2 Vampire Template (Libris Mortis) for a character wishing to swap out (Su)'s & (Sp)'s.
I was going to attempt the same with MERPs, but decided against it.
I can't say there is a single set of rules I have ever read that hasn't influenced my games, from Runequest's awesome hit locations to the mutation rules in Villains & Vigilantes.
A good DM uses whatever he can get his hands on.