While I am not a major fan of the realms, I am curious to know what happened to upset so many people. All I can find reference to is some Spellplague thing.
And not to sound to insensitive, but come on, Krynn has been blown up like 40 times since Tanis and crew decided to come back to Solace (maybe they should have stayed away! lol)
Most of the upset I've heard stems from Forgotten Realms seeming more like a new setting and less like the familiar setting.
Personally, unless they brought back Bhaal (I'm a big fan of the Baldur's Gate games), I don't think I'll be too moved in either direction.
They're using the Spellplague as a reason (or excuse, depending on your point of view) to completely rearrange the geography, pantheon, cosmology, and culture of the setting.
Whether or not you agree with them, it's pretty easy to see how that could get some people fairly riled up.
The spellplague killed of Gods to make way for PoL where the gods basically did not meddle in the affairs of mortals and turned the entire Realms upside down.
Another ocmponent to the frustration of those liking FR is the fact that Eberron will NOT institue such changes and drastic measures to adhere to 4th edition. Characters will not be killed off, nor the vast history of Eberron rewritten to conform to 4th edition mechanics.
The retcon and killing off iconic characters along with the younger Eberron setting not getting a complete overhaul has made Realms fans less than happy.
Maybe a part of it also involves the Living Realms part of the RPGA, but I haven't read too much about that as I don't think it has really gotten underway yet.
While I am not a major fan of the realms, I am curious to know what happened to upset so many people. All I can find reference to is some Spellplague thing.
Many FR fans perceive their setting, rightly or wrongly, as the "deepest" due to the plethora of history/Realmslore and the abiding respect for precedent that underlies it. For a number of years now, people with varying degrees of respect for the Realms have argued its sales numbers could improve if it were to become less history-dependent and more accessible to new gamers. But because most of the people who've opted to play an FR campaign in the past did so precisely because of its greater sense of history, they don't wish to see the setting jettison complexity in the name of higher sales figures. Some even say this would cause sales numbers to fall rather than rise, because the influx of new FR gamers would be offset by veteran FR gamers exiting the setting.
The 4e design team was asked to get rid of anything that makes the Realms mechanically different from other settings, so that non-Realms campaigns can easily migrate to the Realms if they wish and can easily "borrow" Realms material even if they don't. They hit upon the idea of the Spellplague as a way to make these changes seem organic to the setting, providing an in-game rationale for why so many changes are occurring. You're right that a number of longtime Realms players have objected to it, but the Spellplague is really a symptom of their displeasure rather than its underlying cause.
It's hard to say who has the better case, but I do think the 4e Realms team has gotten a bad rap in many respects. They weren't the ones who made the call to simplify the setting, and they've expressed on many occasions their earnest belief that the Spellplague really can improve the setting while simultaneously satisfying WotC's design dictates. So it certainly isn't true that they somehow "have it in" for the setting, as some have claimed. But as to whether the Spellplague actually will produce a better Realms, only time will tell... (and let's not argue that question here as it would be off-topic...)
Frankly, I think the idea of a spellplague is interesting. It could be a way to really turn the place on it's heels, and I for one have the CS & PG both preordered. I may decide that it's a bad place to run my campaign, but I also may decide that it's great. Gotta read the book first :D
The basic perception of the longtime fans is that we were purposefully disregarded in the hope of attracting new players
That's what you get when you try to maintain a timeline through edition shifts.
To me, they made the Realms playable! ;)
Go Spellplague, Go! Kill all the Uber-Characters! :D
Yes, I'm sure that the FR revision means that no Epic or overpowered official characters will ever exist again.
I don't see what's stopping players from simply playing before the Spellplague hit.
Nothing, just like there's nothing stopping gamers from continuing to play any previous edition of D&D. There are a lot of D&D gamers, though, that claim to be physically sick over the changes in the new edition; FR fans are an additional population of players, with a different set of sacred cows that are now being herded into the abbatoir.
Frankly, I think the idea of a spellplague is interesting.
Me too, and I'm content to make my decision about the new FR after the books are released.
Toward the middle/end of the 3E era, I found FR stifling and difficult to begin games in as a DM, especially if I had a mixed group of players, some with knowledge and some without. So I moved to Eberron when it came out and did not look back. I even stopped buying most FR novels as many of them just weren't that great.
Now, though, the Spellplague and 4e have piqued my interest once more. I read Swordmage and loved it (I can't wait to get the character details in my hands) and I actually like the changes that have bee made for the most part.
Essentially, its another area in which 4e has made a change and players and DMs need to take a good hard look at their emotional attachments and figure out what to do. I plan to develop my first realms campaign in like forever, so I feel that WotC scored big time with the changes.
d
It's not like that stuff isn't good anymore. Granted, I'm not a superfan nor an especially longtime fan (first heard of it a wee bit before I started playing 3e), but I'm glad that the book we will get is going go be chock-full of new fluff. If I don't want to use it, that's totally fine; the "old Realms" had more than enough lore to support it. And hell, when I played in the Realms back in 3e, I think the only "Realms specific rules" that were used was one guy who used his geographical home feat.
For some reason, I'm quite excited about the 4e changes as well. I'm a fan of sweeping changes in a story, even changes that I personally dislike. Ever read George R R Martin? He kills off your favorite characters like it's a holiday or something. I both hate it, (my favorite character was killed!) and love it, (what the heck will this do to the place?) The spellplague is the same thing. I'll have a love/hate relation with it, mainly because I love the idea of catastrophic change, and the idea of picking through the aftermath finding the missing pieces to be thrilling.
THe time of troubles was good for the realms - it changed things sure, but nothing so drastic that it killed the flavor of the world.
This spellplague ... I dont know what jackass in wotc decided to try and force a square peg into a round hole with a jackhammer but thats more or less whats happened.
In order to force conformity and get rid of the long term "over powered" npc's these folks decided to alter most of the realms.
So be it - if I dont like it, I will just not use it and make it what I want so that if fits my style. I just think its silly they had to go to this extreme. Then again, they will do anything for a dollar and they dont care if they tick off their main player base at all. Gotta love how wotc treats the long time players and fans of the game.
Anyways, I'm off to work, I'll be back to check in on this later.
I don't understand how the Spellplague gets WotC a dollar. Wouldn't it have been cheaper for them NOT to change anything, and to simply reprint pre-existing lore?
Anyways, I'm off to work, I'll be back to check in on this later.
They couldn't. Like most settings they are bound by the mechanics in the setting as well. With 4th the mechanics got the TV evil-twin. A game so different it doesn't work the same way.
Anything based around Vancian casting had to go. Anything that made gods take parts the direct lives of those inhabiting the world had to go.
Pretty much all the lore revolved around magic and the way it worked had to go. For the Realms that is a LOT of stuff.
What it seems they did was take a blank setting for 4th and try to stick some of the FR elements into it with 5th edition themes and motifs, and mechanics. Anything that wouldn't easily fit into the design philosophy of 4th had to be removed.
The Realms being built so much on the backbone of the old magic system and some other mechanics meant there would be little left of the old lore.
How can you explain Mystra in the 4th edition design concept as per PoL? You can't so she has to go. The Chosen then have to go, and everything they do.
It is like taking out the keystone and then rebuilding from the ground up is what had to be done to make the Realms fit into 4th. The other option would to be cancel the ONLY other setting they had.
Now I am openly not a fan of Eberron, but would wager that Realms are more popular than Eberron. that would leave 4th with only one setting if the Realms were canned.
So using old "fluff" or lore wouldn't work since it touched so closely on the mechanics of older editions and used those mechanics to describe the fluff and vice versa....
So they could just use existing stuff if existing stuff didn't work in the new game.
I don't understand how the Spellplague gets WotC a dollar. Wouldn't it have been cheaper for them NOT to change anything, and to simply reprint pre-existing lore?
Anyways, I'm off to work, I'll be back to check in on this later.
(Keep in mimd that this comment comes from someone that has loved the Realms setting since the early days.)
I think the main issue with the Realms pre-4e, was that there really wasn't much else to "discover" in the world. The history of the Realms was deep and fastidiously recorded in the various books, comics, expansion rulebooks, and articles. It was very complicated and unfriendly to newcomers.
In many ways, it mirrored the situation with DC Comics in the 80's. The DCU, like the Realms, was over-detailed. It made authoring anything new difficult due to continuity issues, and new readers were discouraged by the massive weight of history. The Crisis On Infinite Earths was done to 'streamline' the DCU, and clean up continuity issues. (We can debate the effectiveness of the effort, but the intent was there.)
In this case, the Realms editors were charged with making the setting comply with the 4e Core Rulebooks' standards, and do what they could to make it more dynamic. With such a huge task, it's easy to see how wiping the slate and starting over was preferable to adjusting a zillion different things. The opportunity to clean out the junk in the Realms was an added bonus.
I sympathize with those that are sad to see the changes, (frankly, I'm not sure if I agree with all of them so far) but the idea "shake things up" was sorely needed. I definitely can understand how some people could feel that they were betrayed.
One member of our group points out that the concept has been done before, mostly badly, in other fantasy works - the one that immediately springs to mind for me is the Breaking of the World in Wheel of Time (which is actually one thing that principally attracts me to the New Realms: I've grown to heartily dislike Wheel of Time over several years of being its biggest fan, but I'd always considered the concept of roleplaying in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world to be appealing). I'm prepared to reserve judgment on how well the developers handle this particular trope, but I'd rather be optimistic than not (after all, if they don't go far enough for my tastes, it's easy enough to blast a few more major population centers).
Interestingly, they don't object to the brutal overhauling of the panthea, or the extermination of most of the uber-NPCs, as they've also long considered the setting to be hopelessly cluttered in that regard. What they mainly object to (bizarrely, from my point of view) is the very idea that magic could exist without the Weave. They don't seem to be able to get their heads around the concept - never mind that there have been plenty of power sources in Realmslore that have nothing to do with the Weave. It seems a strange thing to fixate on, but there you have it - that's the thing that really seems to bug them.
For myself, I've never been able to get into the Realms: a deep history is all very well, but when it carries with it such a body of assumed knowledge that requires full-blown research to actually explain, it becomes daunting to those who don't follow it religiously. For example, in a recent Realms game (playing through the Shadowdale module) our group stopped play for an hour and a half to puzzle out a riddle using out of character knowledge, which half of us at the table were not able to follow due to not having read every Realms novel ever written. Now, it's true that it's the GM's fault for letting that happen, but it's also true that you'd rarely, if ever, find a situation like that in any other setting (certainly not Eberron, which doesn't have a large enough body of fiction to support it yet, and which in any case doesn't really have any outside canon except when James Wyatt is writing the sourcebooks). Consequently, the opportunity to essentially wipe the slate clean and start over, delving into only as much of the deep history as seems appropriate at the time, is very appealing to me.
My wife is considerably more knowledgeable about the Realms than I am, but she also thinks the tabula rasa is an exciting opportunity for less constrained development. Considering she'll be the one running the game if ever we play it, I'd say that's a good sign.
In time, things change because of events that happened in that given time.
Now, if the current time of the setting was the time that it was in earlier editions, I could understand the lashback, but that doesn't seem to be the case. 4th edition seems to be expanding on what I liked about the Realms, that things change. With the hundred years that pass, it is understandable that individuals were killed, became demi gods, or beat up Venca because his friend died due to the "Head of Vecna" legend.
To me, the arguement becomes even more silly, the seething anger seems to equate to "Hey! How dare you expand the lore of the realms by increasing the timeline!? The realms is suspose to stay the same for ever! I want to marry Drizzt!" Ah... that was a bit childish of me, but the issue over time remains the same.
So, if you don't like the spellplague, you don't have to let it happen, if you want all the gods to remain, you can! If you want Ao it wear a dress? It can! Being that this is a game, people can pick and choose what they want in the Realms, that is the greatest joy of the Realms, you can do what ever the hell you want, and it has a history to back it up.
Anything that made gods take parts the direct lives of those inhabiting the world had to go.
This, of course, is why Orcus is in the Monster Manual: so that he can never take direct part in the lives of those inhabiting the world.
The Chosen then have to go, and everything they do.
God-touched heroes are so out of favor, in fact, that the designers decided to put the Demigod epic destiny right in the Player's Handbook.
I could keep going, but I won't. The Realms have transitioned through multiple rulesets in the past; the idea that 4e is just too different is, to be polite, silly. "Points of light" is a plot device, designed to facilitate games by assuming that the heroes are (at least locally) unique, and giving them a lot of room to explore. If, however, you want to continue playing the old Realms in 4e, there's absolutely no reason not to.
I don't think the motivation for a "new" Realms is hard to see at all. The primary criticism of the Realms, for the nine years I've been playing D&D, has been that the presence of so many famous, epic-level NPCs and criscrossing plotlines made it unnecessarily difficult to run a game with the PCs as heroes. Rather than bulldozing the Realms because the new edition is fundamentally incompatible (it's not), the content directors decided that the new edition was a good opportunity to revise the things that many players and DMs dislike about the Realms, while keeping the elements that are essential to the setting.
Whether they'll succeed is a separate question--but it's one that ultimately can't be answered until the new books are available. The most reasonable course of action is to give them the benefit of the doubt, and render judgment on the new Realms only once you've actually seen them.
Consequently, the opportunity to essentially wipe the slate clean and start over, delving into only as much of the deep history as seems appropriate at the time, is very appealing to me.
My wife is considerably more knowledgeable about the Realms than I am, but she also thinks the tabula rasa is an exciting opportunity for less constrained development. Considering she'll be the one running the game if ever we play it, I'd say that's a good sign.
You and your wife both sound awesome. Can I come play in your game?
People accept the time change to move 4th edition into the future and allow 3rd to continue over those "missing years".
People want to convert existing Realms games into 4th.
Both have problems.
Those wanting to use 3rd in the Realms during the "missing years" already know what is coming and that things must still change for their 3rd edition game and that they have no future beyond the spellplague.
Those wanting to convert existing game to 4th are struck with the fact that 100 years has past and not every PC will live through those years.
So you can't convert existing games to 4th, and you can't play in 3rd as the future fluff means the end of all that you want to continue in as support for the Realms has changed to the new version only.
Those not liking 4th and wanting to continue playing in the Realms are doubley hit with the 4th edition changes, because it ends their games using and published material as well as any novels to inspire them as not only the edition changed, but the lore also left them behind.
Those wanting 4th to continue in have no place to continue as the party will likely be dead from old age.
So while people CAN change what they want from the new Realms, the very reason they may have liked what existed is the richness of the setting, which is now lost with nothing to guide people into the new edition or help them continue with the old.
Those wanting to use 3rd in the Realms during the "missing years" already know what is coming and that things must still change for their 3rd edition game and that they have no future beyond the spellplague.
The Spellplague is not mandatory; sinister Hasbro-branded mercenaries will not swoop down upon your house and seize you and your players if you don't abide by the Wizards-approved timeline. The Spellplague could be averted, and Mystra preserved, by one of Ao's rare actions on behalf of the world--or perhaps even by the actions of your PCs.
Those wanting to convert existing game to 4th are struck with the fact that 100 years has past and not every PC will live through those years.
Even if you do feel bound to accept the Spellplague's eventual presence in your game, how many PCs play through 100 years of game time? From an actual gameplay perspective, 100 years is a near-infinite amount of time for you to wrap up our 3.5 campaign.
So you can't convert existing games to 4th, and you can't play in 3rd as the future fluff means the end of all that you want to continue in as support for the Realms has changed to the new version only.
What support? It's a set of books. They don't need patching or upgrades or server maintenance; they just are.
So while people CAN change what they want from the new Realms, the very reason they may have liked what existed is the richness of the setting, which is now lost with nothing to guide people into the new edition or help them continue with the old.
The richness of the setting is not going away. Multiple campaign setting books, innumerable supplements, and twenty years of novels provide a near-inexhaustible supply of plot hooks, if you care to continue using them.
I fundamentally do not understand the objections you're posing. Your game is not affected in any way by the release of a new edition of the Realms, unless you so choose. Rule Zero that sucker; you're tougher than it is, and vastly more important to your game.
Even if you do feel bound to accept the Spellplague's eventual presence in your game, how many PCs play through 100 years of game time? From an actual gameplay perspective, 100 years is a near-infinite amount of time for you to wrap up our 3.5 campaign.
Please read the section you responded to again. I think you may have confused yourself a bit.
Unlike the change in rules systems, and even though I'm not really a FR fan, this degree of radical change I can understand upsetting people. It does bring in some new blood and shake things in the Realms up - something much in need of happening IMO - the fact remains that for good or ill this completely alters a shared fictional reality of which many are fond.
Please read the section you responded to again. I think you may have confused yourself a bit.
Your writing is not perfectly clear, but I'm pretty sure I parsed it correctly: you're concerned that working the time shift into your game will make it impossible to continue with the same group of PCs.
I responded that 100 years is plenty of time to wrap up any loose ends in your current campaign, if that's your worry about introducing the Spellplague. You can advance the timeline whenever you're ready to bring the campaign back into sync with the official materials.
How am I confused?
Your writing is not perfectly clear, but I'm pretty sure I parsed it correctly: you're concerned that working the time shift into your game will make it impossible to continue with the same group of PCs.
I responded that 100 years is plenty of time to wrap up any loose ends in your current campaign, if that's your worry about introducing the Spellplague. You can advance the timeline whenever you're ready to bring the campaign back into sync with the official materials.
How am I confused?
I think what he was saying is if you want to carry your campaign over to the new Forgotten Realms, that all your characters are going to be dead from old age.
Another ocmponent to the frustration of those liking FR is the fact that Eberron will NOT institue such changes and drastic measures to adhere to 4th edition. Characters will not be killed off, nor the vast history of Eberron rewritten to conform to 4th edition mechanics.
The retcon and killing off iconic characters along with the younger Eberron setting not getting a complete overhaul has made Realms fans less than happy.
Eberron already fits 4E's style very well, I see no reason to change it.
If anything, 3.5E didn't mesh well with Eberron, especially when it came to things like magic.
I think what he was saying is if you want to carry your campaign over to the new Forgotten Realms, that all your characters are going to be dead from old age.
Yeah.
Two different views there. The particular one did say convert to 4th, so this would be correct.
The other view was about sticking with 3rd. I didn't merge the two to touch only on the separate choices. Those wanting to move to 4th now, and those wanting to stick with older realms and edition, just to make them separate.
Maye I should have split them apart better, or even added the option of playing 3rd for now purposefully through the plague to get to where 4th is, but not an option I have heard anyone want to try yet.
Mostly they are stick with old, or switch.
the part in question was talking about switching entirely, but the 100 years passage of time would kill off the PCs as well as the NPCs. Not good to have your PCs die it you are trying to continue your existing campaign.
Thanks for helping clear that up for me since I guess I didn't explain ti that well. (Thought I did, but just like the Realms, their discussions get confussing.)
Eberron already fits 4E's style very well, I see no reason to change it.
To be as polite as I can about Eberron....DKDC.
They had two options.
One, update the fluff and the crunch.
Two, leave the realms and just update the crunch.
If they went with one (which they did) , people would complain about the fluff.
If they went with two, people would complain that the fluff remained essentiall the same.
I don't think the motivation for a "new" Realms is hard to see at all. The primary criticism of the Realms, for the nine years I've been playing D&D, has been that the presence of so many famous, epic-level NPCs and criscrossing plotlines made it unnecessarily difficult to run a game with the PCs as heroes. Rather than bulldozing the Realms because the new edition is fundamentally incompatible (it's not), the content directors decided that the new edition was a good opportunity to revise the things that many players and DMs dislike about the Realms, while keeping the elements that are essential to the setting.
The people that didn't like the history and Epic NPCs were not Realms fans. Realms fans liked the Realms for those reasons. That's why they are upset. And the fact that it seems that WotC took the criticisms of the Realms bashers over the opinions of the fans. Why would you make setting changes based off of the people that didn't play it anyway? I know the reason, but it leaves the old guard out in the cold. Oh well, too late now, no?
The many NPCs never impeded any game I played in or ran, either. They have their crises and the PCs have their own. It's really that simple. I've never had a proper Realms game run where I've crossed paths with Drizzt, Elminster, etc, etc. It's (was) a big friggin' place. Simply because it has the depth of NPCs does not mean that you need to feature them. If it did, all worlds should be dominated by the Tarrasque cuz it's in the books sos we's gotsta use it. I now see the same argument about the spellplague. Don't like the spellplague? Quit whinin' and don't use it. So how come this never caught on: Don't like Elmister? Quit whinin' and don't use him.
So the people that hated FR for the reasons it's fans loved it won the day. And that's why people are pretty upset about it. After all, didn't the people begging for a setting that has less depth, no cannon and a more "open" feel already get it with Ebberon (note: these are not criticisms of Eb)? There is no need to make FR work like that.
Maye I should have split them apart better, or even added the option of playing 3rd for now purposefully through the plague to get to where 4th is, but not an option I have heard anyone want to try yet.
Mostly they are stick with old, or switch.
I odn't see the dichotomy here. You can keep playing an older edition, or you can update to 4th; you can stay in the old Realms for as long as you care to, or you can embrace the new setting. Changing editions and changing settings are entirely independent of each other (although back-converting the new Realms would presumably require additional work on the DM's part).
the part in question was talking about switching entirely, but the 100 years passage of time would kill off the PCs as well as the NPCs. Not good to have your PCs die it you are trying to continue your existing campaign.
This is what I meant when I said, "100 years is a near-infinite amount of time for you to wrap up our 3.5 campaign." I'm sorry if that was unclear.
The people that didn't like the history and Epic NPCs were not Realms fans. Realms fans liked the Realms for those reasons. That's why they are upset.
The many NPCs never impeded any game I played in or ran, either. They have their crises and the PCs have their own. It's really that simple... Don't like Elmister? Quit whinin' and don't use him.
For my part, the richness and detail were what made the setting appealing. Particularly when integrating a new player into a game, though, it was frustrating to hear (as I did once, as near verbatim as I can remember): "We're near Shadowdale? Okay, we have to go see Elminster. He should give us something good, because we're going to go take care of those drow."
Of course your games don't have to feature the famous NPCs, and mine certainly never did. That's an example, though, of the sort of thing I described in another thread as gamer's Stockholm Syndrome: we've been hostage to uber-NPCs and overarching plots for so long that we start to identify with and value them--even when we're studiously ignoring them in play.
The people that didn't like the history and Epic NPCs were not Realms fans. Realms fans liked the Realms for those reasons. That's why they are upset.
I'll disagree with you, at least as far as the Epic NPCs go.
Example: I ran a 3.5e Realms campaign wherein the PCs were attached one way or another to the Aglarond government and dealing with threats to their nation. You better believe one of the first things I did was contrive a plot reason why the Simbul and her apprentices were largely unavailable.
I love the world, the pantheon, the history, the huge setting, the tons of detail, the unique magic, the way it's a "shared setting" a lot of my players will know something about even though it's uniquely D&D -- but damned if I can run a game half as epic (talking heroics/scope/danger, not level of characters) as I'd like when there's multiple epic-level arcane casters ready to whip down any serious threat to the country.
I'd consider myself a Realms fan, going all the way back to when the 1st ed boxed set was all there was.
So:
I do like that 4E Realms should be less super NPC heavy.
I don't like that 100 years passing has invalidated the old material more than usual. Case in point, running that campaign I did use the 3E Unapproachable East, but I also used 1E and 2E materials I had such as Dreams of the Red Wizards. It was really useful to me in creating some of the campaign that I had a snapshot like that of what Thay was like a few years earlier; I think I'd be able to do less (although admittedly, still some) with a snapshot of what it was like 120 or however many years earlier.
I don't see the dichotomy here. You can keep playing an older edition, or you can update to 4th; you can stay in the old Realms for as long as you care to, or you can embrace the new setting. Changing editions and changing settings are entirely independent of each other (although back-converting the new Realms would presumably require additional work on the DM's part).
This is what I meant when I said, "100 years is a near-infinite amount of time for you to wrap up our 3.5 campaign." I'm sorry if that was unclear.
That is the very thing. old Realms and old edition or new Realms and new edition. Both mean problems for the Realms players.
The thing is that those wanting to switch the existing game TO 4th , don't want to play through the 100 years, but just skip to it, but that causes problems as they would have dead bodies in the party. Even if they took a break from adventuring for a bit, some party members would not be returnign under 4th.
So the players switch the day the new Realms come out, but not all can be converted, as the most obvious, the Humans would be dead in the new Realms.
They aren't wanting to play 3rd anymore, but the whole game convert to 4th ASAP in this example. So it isn't the plague changing thing they have a problem with like those wanting to stick with 3rd, but the time skip that causes problems with converting.
So both have their problems with continuing to play the Realms games.
You either stop your 3rd game because of no future support for the old cosmology, or anything else if you are nearing the point of the last date in the timeline, and playing through it.
Or you stop your existing game and just start over with 4th as you cannot convert to 4th edition in any way with existing characters because they would have probably died off depending on which age system you use to advance them to 4th edition rules. Either way humans from 3rd are all dead and gone or Liches.
For my part, the richness and detail were what made the setting appealing. Particularly when integrating a new player into a game, though, it was frustrating to hear (as I did once, as near verbatim as I can remember): "We're near Shadowdale? Okay, we have to go see Elminster. He should give us something good, because we're going to go take care of those drow."
Of course your games don't have to feature the famous NPCs, and mine certainly never did. That's an example, though, of the sort of thing I described in another thread as gamer's Stockholm Syndrome: we've been hostage to uber-NPCs and overarching plots for so long that we start to identify with and value them--even when we're studiously ignoring them in play.
I can see that happening. Some people do get a little crazy with the NPC hero worship. Drizzt clones ring a bell? ;) But I still think the better solution would be to talk to the player about it over nuking the whole damned thing. But, it's really not an issue any longer. It's over. I doubt I'll buy it myself, but if someone in my group does I'll give it a fair shot. No sense in shutting it out completely because I happen to hate the direction it went. It may not be as bad as it seems.
So here's how it breaks down; every one of these options is available to every DM.
Option 1: Stick with 3.x in the current Realms timeline. Don't bother with the Spellplague. This is the easiest method; it requires no work at all.
Option 2: Reroll new characters in the new Realms timeline. This is the second-easiest method, because while you have to learn a new ruleset, you have zero conversion headaches going forward.
Option 2.5: Finish up whatever your PCs were doing in the current timeline, in a way that's satisfying for the whole table--whether that's wrapping up a quest, advancing to 20th level, or actually playing through the first stages of the Spellplague. Then reroll new characters in the new timeline.
Option 3: Convert your existing older-edition game to 4e without adopting any changes to the timeline or the Realms. This option requires a fair bit of work on the DM's part, as he has to oversee PC conversions as well as convert every element of the game world that the PCs will experience. It's certainly feasible, though.
Option 4: Convert the new Realms to an older edition. It's hard to say how difficult this will be, since it depends heavily on the crunch/fluff ratio of the new campaign setting books--but this, too, is a workable if labor-intensive option.
The people that didn't like the history and Epic NPCs were not Realms fans.
Correction: they were the only Realms fans who enjoy being second-fiddle to NPCs.
I find it very disturbing how proud many FR DMs (not you, necessarily) are that epic-level NPCs and organizations boss around 1st level PCs. They take it as a pride to point out to PCs just how weak and insignificant they are. In other media RPGs (Star Wars Saga, Marvel Super Heroes), DMs assume that Superman or Darth Vader isn't breathing down their neck, and that they have the chance to create for themselves some status and accomplishments.
I think Ed Greenwood's vision is strong enough that what the Realms represents (grand adventure, intrigue, good vs. evil) can outlast specfic changes( class names, dates, or where the fruit stands are).
I'll disagree with you, at least as far as the Epic NPCs go.
Example: I ran a 3.5e Realms campaign wherein the PCs were attached one way or another to the Aglarond government and dealing with threats to their nation. You better believe one of the first things I did was contrive a plot reason why the Simbul and her apprentices were largely unavailable.
I love the world, the pantheon, the history, the huge setting, the tons of detail, the unique magic, the way it's a "shared setting" a lot of my players will know something about even though it's uniquely D&D -- but damned if I can run a game half as epic (talking heroics/scope/danger, not level of characters) as I'd like when there's multiple epic-level arcane casters ready to whip down any serious threat to the country.
I'd consider myself a Realms fan, going all the way back to when the 1st ed boxed set was all there was.
So:
I do like that 4E Realms should be less super NPC heavy.
I don't like that 100 years passing has invalidated the old material more than usual. Case in point, running that campaign I did use the 3E Unapproachable East, but I also used 1E and 2E materials I had such as Dreams of the Red Wizards. It was really useful to me in creating some of the campaign that I had a snapshot like that of what Thay was like a few years earlier; I think I'd be able to do less (although admittedly, still some) with a snapshot of what it was like 120 or however many years earlier.
To me it was always an easy fix. If you get the "why isn't X handling this?" just tell them X isn't available. It was a big place with a ton of bad guys. The NPCs had their own enemies and fights to face. There was plenty of room for the PCs to find their own path. But, to each his own.
The time advancement does suck. We used some of the Faiths and Pantheons and Deities and Demigods stuff in our 3.5 FR game. Great flavor sources, IMO. They listed holidays, types of dress, priestly titles and on and on. Now, they mean nothing. But, as I said, it's too late now. It's over. Time to move on and deal with the new and "improved" FR. Or forget them and let them die. Not sure where I'm going to go with it, myself.
Correction: they were the only Realms fans who enjoy being second-fiddle to NPCs.
I find it very disturbing how proud many FR DMs (not you, necessarily) are that epic-level NPCs and organizations boss around 1st level PCs. They take it as a pride to point out to PCs just how weak and insignificant they are. In other media RPGs (Star Wars Saga, Marvel Super Heroes), DMs assume that Superman or Darth Vader isn't breathing down their neck, and that they have the chance to create for themselves some status and accomplishments.
This is an issue with a DM or group, not FR. As I've stated, there's a million ways around the NPCs and I've never seen them abused. But, I'm sure asshat DMs have and do do this. It's their problem, though. Not Elminster's. Oh well, no biggie.
I think Ed Greenwood's vision is strong enough that what the Realms represents (grand adventure, intrigue, good vs. evil) can outlast specfic changes( class names, dates, or where the fruit stands are).
We can hope. I certainly do.
This is an issue with a DM or group, not FR. As I've stated, there's a million ways around the NPCs and I've never seen them abused.
It's true, and you seem to have done a good job of it.
It's just that too many NPCs fill the role of adventurer and BBEG in the setting, that the material certainly leads DMs to using them (even when it is unnecessary) with the PCs to advance the plot, or worse, advance the plot without the PCs.
Of course, a campaign setting is meant to inspire use, but it should certainly allow DMs to not use it.
The people that didn't like the history and Epic NPCs were not Realms fans. Realms fans liked the Realms for those reasons.
I disagree. I liked the old realms, I like this realms more and I haven't even played it yet.
To me it was always an easy fix. If you get the "why isn't X handling this?" just tell them X isn't available. It was a big place with a ton of bad guys. The NPCs had their own enemies and fights to face. There was plenty of room for the PCs to find their own path. But, to each his own.
It's an easy fix sometimes, harder others depending on the focus of your campaign. In a lot of my Realms campaigns it's been pretty easy -- the PCs go and ask Elminster to fix something for them, he's not around, they move on. In my aforementioned Aglarond campaign, it sometimes threatened to derail the campaign from anything but the fix -- the PCs (rightfully, I might even argue) were very upset that the Simbul was long time missing and put a lot of time and resources into trying to find her.
Thing is though, if you're needing to 'fix' it in each Realms campaign or whenever it comes up, isn't a version of the Realms in which you don't need to better, if maybe only in that respect?
But here's the issue; would you feel ripped off if the campaign setting was basically a reprinting of the 3e campaign setting, with some 4e fluff?
It's not like that stuff isn't good anymore. Granted, I'm not a superfan nor an especially longtime fan (first heard of it a wee bit before I started playing 3e), but I'm glad that the book we will get is going go be chock-full of new fluff. If I don't want to use it, that's totally fine; the "old Realms" had more than enough lore to support it. And hell, when I played in the Realms back in 3e, I think the only "Realms specific rules" that were used was one guy who used his geographical home feat.
You wrote, among other things;
"but I'm glad that the book we will get is going go be chock-full of new fluff."
Or, perhaps, in line with the New Way of D&D it'll just be a book of combat statistics and NO fluff...
Quexor, turning /sarcasm off again now
As mentioned by another poster, is it completely suspect that they left Eberron virtually alone but completely changed FR to be more like Eberron. This is about as bad as letting a Hollywood director take artistic liberty on making a movie on Dungeons and Dragons. I mean gamers will shell out their money for anything that has the DnD brandname logo on it right?
My experience with the Realms has been like this:
We find a problem. It's potentially a big problem. It is, however, something a local NPC could probably fix with about 10 minutes of free time, a light snack, and a band-aid. We're talking the weakest of the chosen of mistra could wade through it with a rusty kitchen knife while drunk, and blindfolded.
Now, if the reason the solution of the problem falls to us was simply because said NPC was busy averting some other, larger disaster I wouldn't have as big of a problem. But no...
In more cases than I can count I've had DMs (who are usually really good DMs) have one of said NPCs first tell us to our faces that we need to do something before everyone dies, and then (or before sometimes if the DM was too hopped up on sugar to think straight) show us exactly how insignificant we were compared to them (sometimes because someone said something really stupid...sometimes not). The worst occurrences happen when the DM uses said NPC to daeus ex machina us out of something we couldn't possibly survive at our level (one time the DM had a chosen blow the head off of a dragon that was trying to eat us and we couldn't hurt) before having the nerve to tell us that we were their only hope.
I don't know what it is.
It gets old after a while.
I honestly gave FR a good shot...but I've seen to many good DMs do stupid things when they drool over uber NPC stats.
Eberron (and Points of Light for that matter) are designed to be PC-centric. The players are drawn to the campaign by what they can do in it, not by what authors have written about what other characters have done. The PCs aren't the top dogs in this campaign, but their adventures matter, and that's part of the campaign's raison d'etre.
On the note of the Epic NPCs, a player doesn't have to meet the big name characters.
If you have to actively work around the big-name characters, though, why have them at all? What function does it serve to have a famous god-touched archmage who is notoriously involved in the world, but who the PCs nevertheless don't quite manage to meet?
Basically the timeline was advanced a number of years to kill off major characters so that what was left of the Realms and the way it worked would fit into 4th edition.
They only killed the non-staple characters. Which was noted when they stated that Drizzit and Elminster were still kept alive.
The spellplague killed of Gods to make way for PoL where the gods basically did not meddle in the affairs of mortals and turned the entire Realms upside down.
Major correction. The "Spellplague" was the result of Mystra's death and only caused greater chaos to happen for spellcasters.
Besides, the changes to the pantheon were results of other things other than this, and a the changes among the Drow's pantheon were mentioned in a two different series... and that included deaths.
Another ocmponent to the frustration of those liking FR is the fact that Eberron will NOT institue such changes and drastic measures to adhere to 4th edition. Characters will not be killed off, nor the vast history of Eberron rewritten to conform to 4th edition mechanics.
That's mostly due to the fact it debuted in 3e, and not 1e. And the fans who started with the series from the beginning will note this is a recurring theme, where as Eberron does not have as deep of a history to do this at this current time.
The retcon and killing off iconic characters along with the younger Eberron setting not getting a complete overhaul has made Realms fans less than happy.
Again, they only removed the non-staple characters in terms of the "major" portion. As for Eberron, it did not get a chance to have the same kind of development like Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, and even Ravenloft have gotten.
So with Eberron, they can what has changed and who has died... and most would scratch their heads out of confusion. Which is why they put a bigger emphasis on the changes to the Realms than Eberron. (And besides, wouldn't people showing passion to their favorite setting be compliment of sorts?)
Maybe a part of it also involves the Living Realms part of the RPGA, but I haven't read too much about that as I don't think it has really gotten underway yet.
This would make sense, and is a great observation. Because with Living Greyhawk ending this year, and there being a century gap, it would make perfect sense to have campaigns fill out the events that lead to one huge event or another.
Besides, if Wizards of the Coast wanted to be evil, they could have turned the Forgotten Realms into a SAGA 2.0-like system. (WotC + That Idea = :evillaugh)
the thing about the time is true, but consider these two posiblities.
People accept the time change to move 4th edition into the future and allow 3rd to continue over those "missing years".
People want to convert existing Realms games into 4th.
Both have problems.
Those wanting to use 3rd in the Realms during the "missing years" already know what is coming and that things must still change for their 3rd edition game and that they have no future beyond the spellplague.
Those wanting to convert existing game to 4th are struck with the fact that 100 years has past and not every PC will live through those years.
So you can't convert existing games to 4th, and you can't play in 3rd as the future fluff means the end of all that you want to continue in as support for the Realms has changed to the new version only.
Those not liking 4th and wanting to continue playing in the Realms are doubley hit with the 4th edition changes, because it ends their games using and published material as well as any novels to inspire them as not only the edition changed, but the lore also left them behind.
Those wanting 4th to continue in have no place to continue as the party will likely be dead from old age.
So while people CAN change what they want from the new Realms, the very reason they may have liked what existed is the richness of the setting, which is now lost with nothing to guide people into the new edition or help them continue with the old.
Well, here's an idea: with so many changes and so much upheaval during the interveaning years from current to 4e, who's to say that the recordkeepers were accurate about 100 years being in-between? It could be much more time has passed than was originally thought or recorded ... so, 200 or 300 years. Does that give your players enough time to play in 3.5e FR? How about 1000 years?
Also, there's nothing saying that your PC's characters can't simply "fall asleep before the Spellplague" and wake up afterwards, in the 4e timeline. It's corny and (possibly) overdone but it works.
The majority of the races in the D&D world(s) live longer than 100 years, by the way ...
Those fans have been playing in, reading about the FR for many many years. Longer than the lifespan of most pets. Some fans in their late 30s had many memories of FR from their childhood. FR, though ficticious, is close to those fans' hearts. It is almost like a new place.
The new FR is like Chicago destroyed and rebuilt, under new admin and with most people who use to live there dead, gone and replaced. An ex-Chicago-er who moved to another country and has no plans of moving back... practically, isnt affected. But practicalities aside, a place they held dear is no more.
In the case of FR, where the destruction can be traced back to a single group of people; the fans know who to blame. is it such a surprise that there are outcrys?
I am not a big fan of FR, I enjoy reading some novels, thats it. But I have known the FR setting since before I was involved in RPGs. And now FR is gone. New FR isnt FR (like New York isnt York).
Over the past few days I have been going through a bunch of threads and I keep seeing reference to something big that happened to the realms that has a lot of people upset.
QUOTE]
Isn't "singe" French for "monkey"
So you're name is essentially "Darth Monkey"?
I think I just had an idea for a web comic...hmmm...
Von Harbringer: Whatever we can agree on for the Realms' strengths, its main weakness is that it wasn't designed to be a RPG campaign setting. Greenwood submitted his fantasy writings to TSR as a campaign because he had some much dang fluff in it that writing articles and books would be easy. Oh, and people liked it.
Eberron (and Points of Light for that matter) are designed to be PC-centric. The players are drawn to the campaign by what they can do in it, not by what authors have written about what other characters have done. The PCs aren't the top dogs in this campaign, but their adventures matter, and that's part of the campaign's raison d'etre.
Actually, Forgotten Realms was one of many fictional worlds originally based on a campaign setting run by its author. Much like Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms was DMed for a long time before the release of the first books for it... the first novels were some of their notable adventures.
The problem that FR suffers from is the fact that it's TOO established. There is a point where there isn't enough to play in the setting, and then there's a point in which the setting is so thick it doesn't leave much room for the DM to toy around in it. FR hit the latter point. This not only makes it impossible for newcomers to join, but difficult to DM, for even vets. I remember walking my adventurers into a town only to have one of my players correct me on every detail I messed up (what can I say, the details are hardest for me to keep track of). The setting isn't PC centric, because the mighty NPCs of the world are the PCs from the settings progenitors (Elminster was a character that Greenwood himself portrayed, even at conventions).
I'm just hoping this world reset helps the problem, and doesn't make it worse. Last thing we need is for them to create brand new uber NPCs in the wake of the cataclysm in the novels, so they become the center of attention again.
Why, you ask?
Because as far as I'm concerned there was no logical way to involve the major evil organizations of the Realms into your campaign before mid-high to high levels. With all the higher level NPCs floating around, you can't convince me that groups like the Zhentarim don't have at least a few "scry and die" parties they keep around to take care of meddlers. If around 5th level you start interacting with and disrupting Zhentarim plots, why on earth won't they send a 12th level party or similar to "scry and die" you? You'd have no defense other than some made up DM fiat to protect you from scrying and teleportation, or even just a simple trap.
So really, it's not the good guy NPCs that bother me (although they do bother in that it seems illogical for them to ignore major threats to their area or neighboring ones, and what's the fun of a game without significant threats?) but more that it seems completely illogical that the evil organizations wouldn't destroy any do-gooders that interfered with them before they became a significant threat.
So, with so many people dying off (and since the majority of the members of evil organizations tended to be human) it seems like a perfect chance for the PCs to have a logical chance to flourish before they're utterly destroyed (and it's always nice to not have to come up with some excuse as to why the local archmage is always busy and can't deal with the goblins in a heartbeat.)
Has anybody thought of requesting that they consider the idea of making a three book series that details the "history" of the Realms (as in Volume 1 = 1e, Volume 2 = 2e, Volume 3 = 3e)?
That way, they could cover everything mentioned in the previous editions, and even do spin-off books based on material and adventures published for the previous editions.
I think Ed Greenwood's vision is strong enough that what the Realms represents (grand adventure, intrigue, good vs. evil) can outlast specfic changes( class names, dates, or where the fruit stands are).
This is what the Forgotten Realms meant to me. Not necessarily high level NPCs, but a land of adventure, of excitement, a land where epic level is possible, "grand adventure" (that's a perfect way to put it), good versus evil, etc.
Just think - this is a possibility for your character to redefine him or herself in the Realms. To change the world.
This is all new. All unplanned, unexplored, unseen. This is your chance to be the new Simbul, the new Drizzt (aww, who the hell am I kidding; he's still alive :D ). Quite literally it's history in the making.
That said, I d see why FR fans are miffed. Messing with their campaign setting is fairly large. That said, I hope they don't condemn the new campaign setting without trying it.
Luckily, as previously mentioned, you should be able to simply play using the previous fluff & timeline. As mentioned, it would be easy (as in zero minimum effort) to set your campaign in the "old Realms". Just ignore what the core books say about the gods not interfering and go for it!
In more cases than I can count I've had DMs (who are usually really good DMs) have one of said NPCs first tell us to our faces that we need to do something before everyone dies, and then (or before sometimes if the DM was too hopped up on sugar to think straight) show us exactly how insignificant we were compared to them (sometimes because someone said something really stupid...sometimes not). The worst occurrences happen when the DM uses said NPC to daeus ex machina us out of something we couldn't possibly survive at our level (one time the DM had a chosen blow the head off of a dragon that was trying to eat us and we couldn't hurt) before having the nerve to tell us that we were their only hope.
The problem is these iconic NPCs should not really be met by the PC party so he DM was not doing well in this setting. There are a few modules that have you interact with some of the iconics. The Accursed Tower I think has Drizzt listed in it as an NPC.
Just because these people exist doesn't mean you ever have to interact with them. Elminster's Tower always had some sort of protection to keep wayward people away from it. It wasn't something in my games where you just walked up and knocked on a door to visit. Qilue may have been seen in Skullport, but didn't mean she would participate with the PCs or even ask them for help.
You don't expect to run into the major characters of stories in most games derived from them such as the D&D world settings. The question wasn't that FR was too populated or had too much history, It may have been people trying to use too much of it. There were MANY places on Toril to visit from Kara-Tur to Maztica, and vast oceans of undescribed areas. You could have played in those areas rather than sticking to the tourist sites of the major NPCs.
Even within the vast history of the Realms, you need not play through it exactly. This is what I never understood about the problem with the Realms having "too much" information? Maybe it was more that people were trying to use too much that they did not leave room for themselves to work in and painted themselves into a corner by trying to use everything.
Do you know everywhere that Elminster is every second, or any of the Chosen for that matter? Do the Zhentarim only fight with the Chosen? There is plenty of room to play in the pre-plagued Realms without ever having to run into these people if you don't want to.
The problem lies in that many people WANT to meet up with and adventure with EVERY iconic from the setting.
The very vast nature of the Realms allows you to pick a starting point and created an alternate Toril form that point where the PCs play major roles in the events that happen within your game. They can run alongside the actual history if you want and play parts in it or can alter the world to a new history without worrying about a paradox because it is the groups game. Not some RPGA only product...or was...
This goes true for any setting. Pick a point in it you like and play from there. You don't have to play through a historical re-enactment of the provided history or novels. It is not Ed's game or Salvatore's game at your house, it is yours. Take what you like form any setting and use the history that you want up to that point and then make the world your own version to allow the PCs to perform their duties and shape the world through their actions.
Well, here's an idea: with so many changes and so much upheaval during the interveaning years from current to 4e, who's to say that the recordkeepers were accurate about 100 years being in-between? It could be much more time has passed than was originally thought or recorded ... so, 200 or 300 years. Does that give your players enough time to play in 3.5e FR? How about 1000 years?
Also, there's nothing saying that your PC's characters can't simply "fall asleep before the Spellplague" and wake up afterwards, in the 4e timeline. It's corny and (possibly) overdone but it works.
The majority of the races in the D&D world(s) live longer than 100 years, by the way ...
There is tons that can be done for 3rd still in the Realms as I indicated above, but my two hypothetical groups were not interested in those things. One wanted to use the fluff majora of FR to continue playing which meant the plague was on their doorstep, while the other wanted to someone move into 4th with existing PCs to continue there game. Again both are confronted with problems that are similar, and hard to dissect in trying to use the fluff of old, and fluff of new....
If you want to give the realms a major overhaul, at least come up with reasons that make sense and stick to established standards. For example, there is no conceivable way in which Mystra could be anywhere even remotely threatened by the invasion of 2 lesser deities (and she had home ground advantage even). Yet in established lore, she just dies like that.
It is like the artists at DC deciding to arbitrarily kill Batman by having him slip in the bathroom and crack his head on the toilet bowl!
In a sense, I am upset not that they did it, but rather, how they chose to go about doing it.
It was utter crock how Mystra could possibly be assassinated by Cyric and Shar in her own realm, or how Helm and Torm might plausibly come to blows over a female goddess.
If you want to give the realms a major overhaul, at least come up with reasons that make sense and stick to established standards. For example, there is no conceivable way in which Mystra could be anywhere even remotely threatened by the invasion of 2 lesser deities (and she had home ground advantage even). Yet in established lore, she just dies like that.
Cyric and Shar are hardly lesser deities in this context. They are two of the four most powerful evil deities in the setting, and Shar is one of the two oldest deities in the setting bar Ao. I don't find it at all bizzare that the two could overcome Mystra.
However, I must question the story behind it. Gods can now just go next door and cap each other whimsically? Compare this to the Time of Troubles. As a story, the ToT was awesome. The gods were made flesh, and made to walk the earth, and all kinds of chaos ensued.
Now, we have two deities saying "hey, lets go kill mystra", and then they proceed to pop over into her plane and ghost her.
That bothers me.
And I couldn't stand Mystra, or the Chosen, so the fact that I'm prostesting how she was removed feels very bizzare to me, but I stand by it. Also, gods and godesses of magic have a very low life expectancy in the realms. Whenever something dramatic needs to happen, *bam*, mystra dies. Perhaps something more meaningful and origional could have been done.
That said, I'm not going to miss Mystra. Not at all.
Just think the old girl perhaps deserved a better exit, at least for the sake of the setting. Perhaps in line with how Paladine gave up his divinity in Dragonlance. That I could have lived with.
this past season on tv more main characters were whacked than any other season in tv history. it was very dissapointing, but it keeps you watching into next season. law and order has lasted so long because they shake up your "knowability" of the setting every year or two.
in order for a story to grow and still be entertaining, sometimes the entire world has to be shaken up.
sometimes this works. look back when Doomsday killed Superman.
sometimes this fails. look how Richie Ryan was written off Highlander. it killed the show completely.
FR fans may not like it now, they may never like it, but i don't like it when some jerk cuts me off on the highway just to turn right in 50 feet later. it happens, and this is an opportunity for them to fix it and possibly make it right in their own eyes.
i know if i had the chance for my pc to be the next Elminster i would take it. And that might not actually be a bad idea for an epic RPGA contest.
but anyway, as i said, in Dragonlance the world is shaken up in the same manner every other book, so maybe we Krynners are used to this ;)
oh, and Singe in darth singe does not stand for monkey. It means he has been singed by the dark side.
The thing is that those wanting to switch the existing game TO 4th , don't want to play through the 100 years, but just skip to it, but that causes problems as they would have dead bodies in the party. Even if they took a break from adventuring for a bit, some party members would not be returnign under 4th.
So the players switch the day the new Realms come out, but not all can be converted, as the most obvious, the Humans would be dead in the new Realms.
This may be a dumb question, but don't PCs ever have kids or apprentices?
...I'm not really a FR fan...something much in need of happening IMO...
Well, we're fans because we thought things didn't need that shake-up. We enjoyed the rich history, which we could ignore if/when we wanted to. Now, with the new stuff coming in, which a lot of us deign as of inferior quality, it makes things harder. Ignoring the ToT post 3rd ed wasn't easily done, but it was possible. Same with the Spellplague. But they removed many iconic characters (Mystra for one) and countries (Unther and Maztica might not be the most Realmsian places, but they were still part of the Realms), and introduced new snazzy races (Dragonborn may only be a variation of Saurials, but the way they got introduced didn't fit in).
The problem is these iconic NPCs should not really be met by the PC party so he DM was not doing well in this setting. There are a few modules that have you interact with some of the iconics. The Accursed Tower I think has Drizzt listed in it as an NPC.
Just because these people exist doesn't mean you ever have to interact with them.
No one's actually answered this question yet: if good DMs leave out the iconic FR NPCs, then why is it critically important that the setting continue to include them?
The very vast nature of the Realms allows you to pick a starting point and created an alternate Toril form that point where the PCs play major roles in the events that happen within your game. They can run alongside the actual history if you want and play parts in it or can alter the world to a new history without worrying about a paradox because it is the groups game. Not some RPGA only product...or was...
You're aware that there's already an RPGA Living campaign set in the Forgotten Realms, right? I would be any amount of money, however, that no one has broken into your home while you're playing and yelled "You can't do it that way! The RPGA forbids it!"
There will be a Living campaign set in the Forgotten Realms. That does not in any way make it an RPGA-only product, nor does it force any change in your campaign.
There is tons that can be done for 3rd still in the Realms as I indicated above, but my two hypothetical groups were not interested in those things. One wanted to use the fluff majora of FR to continue playing which meant the plague was on their doorstep, while the other wanted to someone move into 4th with existing PCs to continue there game. Again both are confronted with problems that are similar, and hard to dissect in trying to use the fluff of old, and fluff of new....
One more time, with feeling: it's your game. No one is coming to take your 3.0 FRCS away. If one group wants to play 3e up to and through the Spellplague, for as long as their characters naturally live, then do that. If the other group wants to play 4e right now in the "old" realms, then you can do that. It will probably still be less work than 3.5 adventure design, since the DM overhead in 4e is so much lower.
Fluff works with fluff; it always will and always has. I would understand if you were simply upset, but here's the thing: everyone else in the thread seems to be saying either "I dislike the idea of the new Realms" or "I'm excited about the new Realms". By contrast, you seem to be saying "I dislike the idea of the new Realms, and I'm disappointed that everything I've ever done is completely incompatible with the new Realms, which I'm being forced to adopt."
They killed of many cool and important gods, replaced whole areas, added new races in the most illogical ways, and destroyed the cosmology of the realms AGAIN!
If someone would change our "setting" this way, I think every human being would be angry. Lets see....
1) Let south america drop to the ground of the sea and set Atlantis at its place, with a population of fishy humans.
2) Set earth in a crystal sphere, take the sun away and give us instead three moons which heat the earth with vulcanic eruptions.
3) Erase all religions except of the big three monotheistics and make them evil, then add cults for Baal, Zeus and Odin.
The reason??? Spellingplague....
I think many fans here see themselves as part of the realms, and absolutely hate how their world gets screwed up.
You can go blue in the face explaining how the Spellplague is so gosh-darn super and how it was necessary and all that, the fact remains most of the people who played FR played because they like a Medieval fantasy flavor not a post-apocalyptic fantasy flavor. It's a complete switch of the genre, pure and simple.
You might as well have Cylons landing in the middle of the FR and Elminster and the others jumping on a starship and looking for Earth and then trying to pass that off. "Oh, we know people are afraid of change but this will only improve the setting!" "Oh, come on, the Cylonplague isn't that bad, I think it's actually kind of useful and nice
!" Yeah some people will think that, it doesn't change the fact that it's a genre-switch, and 4e FR is as well.So... WotC is essentially saying "No people, we don't play Medieval fantasy anymore, now we all play post-apocalyptic and like it"... yeah, except people play what they like, period. Clearly WotC was of the opinion that P-A trumps Medieval in popularity, I think they're wrong.
In time, I'm sure a lot of us could of gotten used to the 'exchanged' regions with Abeir (which was just the designers replacing stuff they personally didn't like with stuff they personally did like - the fans be damned).
What we can't swallow - AT ALL - is the hundred year timejump, which basically means our campaigns just came to a crashing end (unless we deide to stick with 3e, which many of us intend).
They didn't just murder all the NPCs THEY own; WotC also murdered everyone's character with that timejump. They should put THEMSELVES in the monster manual - they're more efficient killers then the Terrasque!
The Spellplague isn't so bad - its basically just the ToT on steroids - we could have learned to live with that.
I don't know too much about the time of troubles, but I'm under the impression, that nothing got really lost then. Sure, some gods died, but they were replaced by others with the same function. Now they kill off gods without any replacement, their portfolios and duties simply vanish to simplify the setting, to make Drizzt cooler, or for other dumb reasons.
I don't know too much about the time of troubles, but I'm under the impression, that nothing got really lost then. Sure, some gods died, but they were replaced by others with the same function.
-Correct. After the whole ordeal, things, more or less, "returned to normal".
WOTC can't win.
They had two options.
One, update the fluff and the crunch.
Two, leave the realms and just update the crunch.
If they went with one (which they did) , people would complain about the fluff.
If they went with two, people would complain that the fluff remained essentiall the same.
They cold have won. Just move the timeline 10 years into the future in FR and you have a lot of things that could've changed in the realms that would still feel realmsian.
If you have to actively work around the big-name characters, though, why have them at all? What function does it serve to have a famous god-touched archmage who is notoriously involved in the world, but who the PCs nevertheless don't quite manage to meet?
Because it gives us options. And that's the most important part of ANY RPG, to have options. That's one of my greatest reasons why I hate 4ed. It has no true options.
They cold have won. Just move the timeline 10 years into the future in FR and you have a lot of things that could've changed in the realms that would still feel realmsian.
PRECISELY!!!
A ten year timejump would have given us the new King Azoun just barely taking the throne, those triplets in Tethyr fighting a war of succession, massive trade and exploration underway in Maztica... and the opening up of a whole new (well, not that new, but it could have been built up to something awesome) Campaign Area.
We could of witnessed first-hand all the death and destruction the Spellplagued caused - the starving refugeees moving en-mass to new locations, disfigured mongrel-men who were victims of magical backlash, Insane mages being hunted by newly formed packs of 'Witch Hunters'.
I could go on and on - what they did was SKIP OVER the most interesting thing they created! Thats the time I would have wanted to game in! Just imagine being in the middle of all that magical chaos in a world gone mad, and a hero has his work cut out for him!
Instead, they fast-forwarded it a hundred years to the Year of the Yawning Players.
Why the hell would they re-start the setting AFTER all the good stuff happened? Everything I have read about the Spellplague gives me great ideas for game sessions, and everything I have read about year 1479 DR lives me with a great, big felling of *meh*.
They took what was possibly the greatest age of heroes being born (and dying), and skipped right over it. I just don't understand their way of thinking - if they did it to wipe out that "feeling of entitlement" they love talking about, the Spellplague and a decade could have accomplished the same thing.
Instead, we get Dragonlance, with it's many 'Ages of lost players'.
PRECISELY!!!
A ten year timejump would have given us the new King Azoun just barely taking the throne, those triplets in Tethyr fighting a war of succession, massive trade and exploration underway in Maztica... and the opening up of a whole new (well, not that new, but it could have been built up to something awesome) Campaign Area.
We could of witnessed first-hand all the death and destruction the Spellplagued caused - the starving refugeees moving en-mass to new locations, disfigured mongrel-men who were victims of magical backlash, Insane mages being hunted by newly formed packs of 'Witch Hunters'.
I could go on and on - what they did was SKIP OVER the most interesting thing they created! Thats the time I would have wanted to game in! Just imagine being in the middle of all that magical chaos in a world gone mad, and a hero has his work cut out for him!
Instead, they fast-forwarded it a hundred years to the Year of the Yawning Players.
Why the hell would they re-start the setting AFTER all the good stuff happened? Everything I have read about the Spellplague gives me great ideas for game sessions, and everything I have read about year 1479 DR lives me with a great, big felling of *meh*.
They took what was possibly the greatest age of heroes being born (and dying), and skipped right over it. I just don't understand their way of thinking - if they did it to wipe out that "feeling of entitlement" they love talking about, the Spellplague and a decade could have accomplished the same thing.
Instead, we get Dragonlance, with it's many 'Ages of lost players'.
I so wish it was a 10 year jump
-AGHotR gave us what happened in the next ten years, but didn't bump up the official timeline by ten years.
We meant it for the 4th edition FRCG.
Because it gives us options. And that's the most important part of ANY RPG, to have options. That's one of my greatest reasons why I hate 4ed. It has no true options.
Have you even read the books? There are plenty of options.
But here's the issue; would you feel ripped off if the campaign setting was basically a reprinting of the 3e campaign setting, with some 4e fluff?
Let me think...
...no.:P
On a more serious note, I've mentioned my "issues" with the new changes countless times already, and my initial shock and anger has already pretty much played out. My own Realms doesn't follow canon and hasn't for quite awhile now, so overall the changes to the Realms don't make me that emotionally upset anymore, although I still dislike many of the changes and the rationale behind them.
Have you even read the books? There are plenty of options.
Yes, I've read them. And no, they aren't true options, they are the same thing masqueraded as options. If a fighter can cast magic without levels in a spellcasting class then the differences are only cosmetic.
But what I was referring with that post was, that it's better to have all those NPCs and not use them, because at that particular instance you don't need them, than don't having them and needing them. It's easier to ignore a part of the setting than having to build it from scratch. Creation is harder than destruction.
The people that didn't like the history and Epic NPCs were not Realms fans. Realms fans liked the Realms for those reasons. That's why they are upset.
Exactly. I know I enjoyed many of the things that were seen as "liabilities" to the setting, such as the amount of gods (which wasn't all that unique--just look at Greyhawk!), Mystra and her Chosen, and the amount of history. I know I don't have to use the new changes, and I won't.
But that sure as hell doesn't mean I can't give my opinion about them.
Speculation:
-Broad, poorly constructed ideas made to quickly implement a new system of magic that, uh, isn't what it should be IMO. In short, the Spellplague was like a quick fix from someone at the office that lost the big project it seems. The ToT had creative merit, though not completely original, but it worked out nicely and things moved on. The Plague's massive upheaval is in short going tabula rasa for the entirety of an institution since '87 w/ little regard for all the hard work and vision that went into it.
Glosses over so much majesty and creativity it's sickening...and phony as Hell too. More precisely, it was convenient, didn't require alot of explanation, etc. Age old plothook device; need new explanation for a world changing mechanic, uh, quick, foster some post-apocalyptic flavor of the we(a)ek.
-Chronology; 10 years as wisely mentioned, could've done just fine. If they are truly moving to the P-A style, it's usually the initial shock and slowly forming aftermath that is the most dynamic time to engage in. I mean, if all these things happened from the ToT, no one would be left on Faerun or they'd all be so completely xenophobic it wouldn't be RPing at all.
Again, smacks of shoddy creative design. Big massive change w/ little explantion as an impetus for a new ruleset that is decidely lacking, quick fix in advancing the clock 100 years.
-Realms NPCs; I could give a damn. So sick of hearing, "Oh, they overshadow the PCs." Don't use them. I make reference to them for my gamers as part of the news via Gather Info or draw some conclusions, but they don't show up cuz' 1/2 of them suck, others are terribly unrealistic, and yet others still just are too cliche' and hackneyed. It's like the game itself, rules can be adjusted easilly enough, but the colorful backdrop...yeah, they decided to kill off pretty much everything. This will give them an excuse to make even more books, invent more heroes, but more precisely, more profits.
If I were Ed Greenwood, I'd be super pi$$ed. His fairly gifted and detailed brain child has been turned into an ADD rattled special needs kid.
The change seems like a new govt. regime taking over where they try desperately to remove any past evidence of the previous regime as they seem to insecure about the tenusous future. The more you try, the more followers you lose. A more gradual pace would've worked better.
-New geography. Wtf. Thay, awesome, original and a favorite since 2nd ed, is now just another Mordor. The merging of Abeir, bad design. Planar motes, way too sci-fi'ish and over-the-top. They didn't need to change all that. Fine, new rules set, ok (well, not for me, but not my choice) but to gut an otherwise sound land? There were so many different cultures and immense diversity to choose from, but this? Seems like a step backward. Like giving a screenplay idea to some pop culture junkies raised on cable TV and sugar instead of a Harvard grad w/ actual film credentials and research.
-Pantheon; I kinda' figured Mystra would die again...the necessary sacrificial lamb to kickstart this bulls-it Spellplague, but it seemed too sudden and fake. Rushed, unrehersed, phony. Torm and the rest, even worse.
The only upside is the great diversity, even aftering this culling is still preferable to the limited pantheon in the core books...though I noticed they hijacked Bane. Not sure what's up w/ that, though he is your plain vanilla evil god.
Overall, they could've found other ways to usher in the new rules and eveything, but they dropped the ball. It's sad, the best selling, most expansive setting to be bungled so badly. This kind of overhaul wasn't necessary going from 2nd to 3rd. In fact, the transition was sound, very believable, and didn't require junking alot of other peoples' hard work.
Major things I hate most about the 4e FR setting:
- All my favorite gods have been killed off. And I seriously mean All of them. Not one has been spared. And the explanations for everyone of them sucks ass too.
- Most of my favorite iconic characters are now dead. For example, I will never get to see King Azoun IV of Cormyr grow up and rule. I only hear about the aftermath in about 3 sentences of text off the website. Also, I liked the Chosen of Mystra. Now they are all dead or living inside of Elminister's mind (which is another stupid change to the setting).
- All this change, and yet WoTC's goldenboy's Elminister and Drizzt are basically untouched. Drizzt somehow remains un-"redeemed" like all other good aligned drow, and Elminister took a turn for the worst now that he has the voices of the chosen in his head everytime he cast magic. lame...
- Areas I liked have now changed. For example, why couldn't they just leave Blackstaff tower be? Prefereably with Khelben Blackstaff still in it....
- No new novels or game modules will be set before the post-spellplague timeline. So any future support for the setting I already love is gone. I'm reduced to working with whats already been released or create my own FR setting that only my gaming table subscribes to. I don't get to look forward to any new releases featuring pre-spellplague material when I felt like there was alot of room for more products and novels in 3.5. It sure takes alot of excitement out of the Realms to see that nothing new will be produced for the timelines of the campaign I like.
- Forgotten Realms without Mystra and the Weave just isn't the Forgotten Realms anymore IMO.
I find it very disturbing how proud many FR DMs (not you, necessarily) are that epic-level NPCs and organizations boss around 1st level PCs. They take it as a pride to point out to PCs just how weak and insignificant they are.
And those are the majority of FR DMs? If so, how could you know that for a fact?
The setting isn't PC centric, because the mighty NPCs of the world are the PCs from the settings progenitors (Elminster was a character that Greenwood himself portrayed, even at conventions).
That's...not really true, from what I know of Ed (thanks to reading a lot of his answers on Candlekeep). Sure, Ed plays Elminster at conventions, but Elminster did not start off as a PC played by Ed.
That's...not really true, from what I know of Ed (thanks to reading a lot of his answers on Candlekeep). Sure, Ed plays Elminster at conventions, but Elminster did not start off as a PC played by Ed.
-Right. He's gone to great lengths to explain how TSR mandated that he write the Elminster novels, when he would have rather written novels about other characters, and that he appear at those old conventions dressed up as Elminster.
what they did to Baldur's Gate
what the renamed the silver marches too( i cant pronounce it, and if i could it wouldnt bug me anymore)
to some the loss of unther and matizasca
i dont think anyone is going to miss the grey protector or that kiaranlsee
and the alledged combining of gods
Sehanine and selune are not the same....
I'm glad human vocal chords have evolved since then. :P
I'm glad human vocal chords have evolved since then. :P
-Because of the Spellplague.
And ofc vocal chords have evolved. All the screaming and wailing is good practice.
I know from experience that FR can be a great, imaginative and unique setting to play and that the myriads of gods and NPCs often contribute there (though I will attest that they can manage to get overbearing on occasion). However exactly because of all the detail, FR can be a tough setting to handle correctly. It can intimidate new players and the initial impression it makes can be very negative.
I am a longtime Realms fan. I bought the original boxed set back in the 80s. I love the setting. And I am very upset about what they done. In a nutshell, they have changed the setting completely to the point where at least in places it is no longer recognizable as the setting we have seen over the last 20+ years. They have also forcefed us things such as the dragonborn and the like. Plus, the timejump of over 100 years was unnecessary and a slap to the face or at least perceived as such
The basic perception of the longtime fans is that we were purposefully disregarded in the hope of attracting new players
I agree with all you've said on the matter. It was all a major retcon, when we were promised there would be no more retcons for FR. I've been playing D&D since 1ED back in 1983 and I must say this is the most pathetic change ever made to Forgotten Realms. Die 4ED DIE!
I agree with all you've said on the matter. It was all a major retcon, when we were promised there would be no more retcons for FR. I've been playing D&D since 1ED back in 1983 and I must say this is the most pathetic change ever made to Forgotten Realms. Die 4ED DIE!
I hear the spellplague warped the avariels and turned them into green elven vampires.
I've been playing D&D since 1ED back in 1983 and I must say this is the most pathetic change ever made to Forgotten Realms. Die 4ED DIE!
I've said my piece and more about adapting 4e and/or the new version of the Realms to individual campaigns, so I'll just say this: 4e is the occasion for the revision, not the cause of it.
Realms is simply put, too massive to pick up, you have months worth of GOOD reading in the books and this can cause people to be daunted.
Star Wars to a point suffers a similar fate. I ran a game in the new jedi order time frame, and while everyone had fun my limited knowledge of the books did lead to several awkward moments where people were in character making comments about events that happened in the books that I the GM knew nothing about. I'm not about to stop that because it's A: good roleplaying for them to be concerned/curious about major members of the order, B: more importantly, enjoyable for the player themselves, after all that's what we're all here for isn't it.
I feel that people who are happy/accepting of the changes simply put don't actually want to play in the realms, and that's fine. Honestly the realms does stifle creativity to a point, but that's how the realms rolled.
I feel the Realms ran its course. The swing argument about 4th ed being D&D can be battled on by ignorant nuggets till the end of time, however the fact that 4th Eds combat and magic system plays dramatically different to any previous edition does imply that this is in fact a massive change in the direction of D&D. It's also a change that the Realms just can't make, it's too much engrained in old traditions. The changes feel clunky.
What was the point of trying to turn FR into something new for new players, when something TRULY new would have done just as well, if not better?
The only thing they managed to do with their FR makeover is drive the old FR fans away, which is counter-productive. had they just created a new 'core' world, everyone would still be happy, and WotC wouldn't be stuck with all its eggs in one basket.
Destroying FR to create something new from the corspe of the old just seams a little silly to me, when it would have been MUCH easier to start from scratch.
(BTW - I know what it really was - it was those novels, and I've been saying all along they're ruining the game).
Realms is simply put, too massive to pick up, you have months worth of GOOD reading in the books and this can cause people to be daunted.
-This notion is false, in that, as was mentioned, the fanbase continues to grow, despite the fact that the setting is "too massive", to deep, too whatever "to pick up". Mind you, this isn't an attack on you, but this notion in general.
-A lot.
Oops
No one's actually answered this question yet: if good DMs leave out the iconic FR NPCs, then why is it critically important that the setting continue to include them?
Not everyone thinks the iconic NPCs should be left out. For example, I actually like those characters. It's just that when people complain about the characters and say they dislike them, the logical thing to suggest is not to use them.
There are a lot (heh, got it right the first time) of informed viewpoints out there besides our own.
Over the past few days I have been going through a bunch of threads and I keep seeing reference to something big that happened to the realms that has a lot of people upset.
While I am not a major fan of the realms, I am curious to know what happened to upset so many people. All I can find reference to is some Spellplague thing.
And not to sound to insensitive, but come on, Krynn has been blown up like 40 times since Tanis and crew decided to come back to Solace (maybe they should have stayed away! lol)
My "what happened to upset ... people" is that they sould have let us play that Realms Upheavel. Could you think of a greater age of adventure?
Hasbro don't care.
I think it would have been a great transition... but they just (seem) want to move things to a NEW low adventure Realms.
So why couldn't they have created a new world for 4e? I'm sure they would have done a bang-up job, and it would have served all the purposes they wanted - New, shiney, no sense of 'Entitlement, no years of un-learnable lore (even though thousands of us still learn it everyday), etc, ect...
I'd have been happier. :-\
It would have eliminated one of my TWO problems with 4.0.
My "what happened to upset ... people" is that they sould have let us play that Realms Upheavel. Could you think of a greater age of adventure?
Hasbro don't care.
I think it would have been a great transition... but they just (seem) want to move things to a NEW low adventure Realms.
But there's absolutely nothing to stop you from doing that. You've got the 4th edition rules for how magic works without the Weave and you have the 3.5 setting books to say how things are back then and the 4th edition setting books to say how things are afterwards. You could easily run a transition campaign. If I had a 3.5 FR campaign that's exactly what I would do.
And why? We need to change the way magic works and reduce the overpopulation problem in the Outer Planes. Then we need to nuke all the uber NPC's because the Realms, while one of the most popular settings in the last two decades is too confusing for new players?
No, it wasn't. All you had to do was pick a spot in the Realms to start in and learn the lore as you go along. I started in the Ilfarn area, Daggerford, Secomber, etc. Then expanded out.
If you start out in Longsaddle, then running into the Harpells is inevitable.
Shadowdale has Elminister and a plethora of uber NPC's.
Well I'll quit before I upset myself, I've come to terms with the fact that the changes have been made, now I'll see if I can work with them.
Bel
Halflings turning into Kender? Well, maybe not the last one...
-Thankfully, no. Halflings are not turning into Kender. ;)
When the halflings turn into Kender, look for the rest of the signs of the Apocalypse.
-The Rise of the Headless Zhent was also another sign, if I recall correctly.
The problem that FR suffers from is the fact that it's TOO established. There is a point where there isn't enough to play in the setting, and then there's a point in which the setting is so thick it doesn't leave much room for the DM to toy around in it. FR hit the latter point. This not only makes it impossible for newcomers to join, but difficult to DM, for even vets. I remember walking my adventurers into a town only to have one of my players correct me on every detail I messed up (what can I say, the details are hardest for me to keep track of).
Why not just kicking such a PITA of a player out? After all, the very first trule youre presented in the FRCS is that the world is yours to play with, and it isnt only whats in the book.
The players should remember that. The dm is not just a recorder of whats in the books.
Regardles of all the little details and back-and-forth over NPCs and such, the bottom line is Forgotten Realms was a 'Knights and Princesses Medieval' fantasy setting, and WotC turned it into a 'Post-Apocalyptic' fantasy setting.
You can go blue in the face explaining how the Spellplague is so gosh-darn super and how it was necessary and all that, the fact remains most of the people who played FR played because they like a Medieval fantasy flavor not a post-apocalyptic fantasy flavor. It's a complete switch of the genre, pure and simple.
You might as well have Cylons landing in the middle of the FR and Elminster and the others jumping on a starship and looking for Earth and then trying to pass that off. "Oh, we know people are afraid of change but this will only improve the setting!" "Oh, come on, the Cylonplague isn't that bad, I think it's actually kind of useful and nice
So... WotC is essentially saying "No people, we don't play Medieval fantasy anymore, now we all play post-apocalyptic and like it"... yeah, except people play what they like, period. Clearly WotC was of the opinion that P-A trumps Medieval in popularity, I think they're wrong.
Youre absolutely right, I haven't realised that until I read that post, but thats the biggest problem with the new FR. Its not a medieval fantasy anymore. Instead, what we get is a Fallout mixed with Arcanum.
Why not just kicking such a PITA of a player out? After all, the very first trule youre presented in the FRCS is that the world is yours to play with, and it isnt only whats in the book.
The players should remember that. The dm is not just a recorder of whats in the books.
-Not to mention that there are large swaths of land in the setting that are intentionally left blank (Lantan, Borderkingdoms, etc.). But, when criticizing with the intent of being critical, and not constructive, most people either aren't privy to all of the details, or intentionally ignore them.
Heck a certain drow could of fallen through a portal into it if they wanted.
I don't know why they just didn't take the brave step of creating a vastly different and 4th edition setting that does what they want and leave the FR alone, rather than radically change it so much that it barely recognizable.
Heck a certain drow could of fallen through a portal into it if they wanted.
Because FR is a big DnD brand that I guess most people outside of the rping community recognizes due to all those video games that had been out since BG. I wonder how those "outsiders" will react when the eventual 4E FR video game comes out. May be WotC will have to explain everything again to those people.
There are too many Status Quo changing "events" lately... one after another, they just never stop. Crisis after Crisis in DC, Civial Wars, Secret War, Secret Invasion, Secret blah blah blah in Marvel, Coup d'etat, Worldstorm, Armageddon in Wildstorm, and now Spellplague in FR. At least it doesnt feature a crossover with Planescape, Eberron and Dragonlance in the DnD "multiverse"...
I'm sticking with my EB.
Why not just kicking such a PITA of a player out? After all, the very first trule youre presented in the FRCS is that the world is yours to play with, and it isnt only whats in the book.
The players should remember that. The dm is not just a recorder of whats in the books.
Youre absolutely right, I haven't realised that until I read that post, but thats the biggest problem with the new FR. Its not a medieval fantasy anymore. Instead, what we get is a Fallout mixed with Arcanum.
Wait a sec... do we know FR is post-apoc style now? (honest question). May be it is still just a standard fantasy setting. The whole spellplague thing could be just the fluff excuse of the paradigm shift in the 3E to 4E system... that is possible right?
I mean, there are places in FR that arent affected physically so it just looks like the old FR+100 years (and given the tech advancements of fantasy setting, 100 years don't really change the world much). It's just that now they have some new, different places to visit. FR as a whole could still be generic fantasy, right? With the devastated, post-apoc style as exceptions and not the rule in general in the FR world.
I just dont think switching the genre completely is in their best $ making interest.
Wait a sec... do we know FR is post-apoc style now? (honest question).
-No. Certain areas are inherently changed, and most places are "touched" in some way, but the setting hasn't shifted to a post-apocalyptic genre.
Damn Archmage Ninjas!
Damn Archmage Ninjas!
-That is why you work for me, not the other way around. ;)
1. Overly expansive and seemingly heavy-handed
This has to do with feeling like things are heavy-handed and needlessly destructive/invasive. For example: "The mechanics for magic are changing, so we have to kill the Weave, Mystra, and have a huge plague that wreaks havoc with magic and mages." I find myself puzzled by the logic in this, as the Weave, and Mystra's involvement with this, were not (as I recall) a major part of the setting until Third Edition made them such. When we played in First Edition, none of the people that I played with cared at all about it (unless you were playing a Mystran priest, then maybe it was fluff for sermons, etc). I could write a great deal about this, but it seems like a much more elegant solution that was less invasive would have been a better alternative.
2. Removal of a number of favorite NPCs and Gods/Goddesses
"People feel that the NPCs in the Realms overshadow the achievements of their characters, so we need to kill them off." First off, this struck me as a fallacy to begin with. Most of the cited examples from people had little to do with the Realms itself, but poorly DMed games that just happened to be set in the Realms. Even if we let the underlying contention stand (that major characters in the setting overshadow PCs), I still have issue with the way they did it, if only for the simple fact that they left the most commonly cited, and most commonly abused, NPC alone - Drizzt.
3. Manner of implementation
As I have posted elsewhere, how something happens can be as important as whether it happens. A heroic and meaningful death of a character who has ultimately lived out their purpose in the story is far better than an abrupt or seemingly illogical death - but even that is better if put in context in a story, than a death that is just randomly announced in the prelude text of an adventure. Ascendency of the Last spoiler:
Show
The fact that Eilistraee was abruptly killed off at the end of this trilogy/novel bothered me - particularly in light of the fact that I felt it was grossly unnecessary, even if they wanted to remove her as a main goddess to help reduce the size of the pantheon, and put all the good-aligned elves under Corellon. It would have been child's play to write a one or two page scene where, with the 'redeemable' drow 'redeemed' into dark elves, he welcomes her home to Arvandor officially, and she becomes a demigod-esque handmaiden of his in the 4th Edition rules.
2. Removal of a number of favorite NPCs and Gods/Goddesses
"People feel that the NPCs in the Realms overshadow the achievements of their characters, so we need to kill them off." First off, this struck me as a fallacy to begin with. Most of the cited examples from people had little to do with the Realms itself, but poorly DMed games that just happened to be set in the Realms. Even if we let the underlying contention stand (that major characters in the setting overshadow PCs), I still have issue with the way they did it, if only for the simple fact that they left the most commonly cited, and most commonly abused, NPC alone - Drizzt.
In a related point, any dm poor enough to used named npc to upset there players, then they just used unnamed npcs to do the same.. heck the more powerful dragons are prety good at over shadowing most people if used that way.
In a related point, any dm poor enough to used named npc to upset there players, then they just used unnamed npcs to do the same.. heck the more powerful dragons are prety good at over shadowing most people if used that way.
-Indeed. Some DMs don't do this- that is, overshadow the PCs using NPC characrers- intentionally. While some do, I think it's probably a small minority that do this. I think it's safe to say that most DMs who do this start off with good intentions. They think X NPC is 'cool', and thus, want to incorporate them into their games.
As for famous NPC's, I myself like to see them show up on occasion. Although when doing that, if they're going to be fighting alongside the PC's, then it's probably best to do so when the NPC's in question are on a roughly even keel to the PC's. Then they're the equivalent of another party member, instead of being the whole show. Or if you're going to use a more powerful one, then use them in the role of party patron (Alustriel is a good one, being busy with Silverymoon and all).
I sort of envision a game where the players are supposed to be the heroes, but through no intention of the DM, the PCs keep finding themselves in over their heads, through some combination of bad luck, player inexperience (bad choices/tactics), and/or DM inexperience (creating too high of a difficulty level). The DM then elects to bail the characters out, deus ex machina fashion, by having Elminster/Drizzt/etc swoop in to save the day, rather than letting the players all die. If this happens once in a great while, it's not bad. When it starts becoming constant, it's very easy to see why some players would feel resentment towards that NPC.
Conversely though, I find that famous NPCs, used correctly, can simultaneously help forward the plot, make the PCs feel important, and provide a sense of feeling like you're really in the Forgotten Realms. It's all in how they're used (and not used).
-Metacontext. That's a good term. A lot of things that made sense, in terms of metacontext, but not in terms of in-game context.
Exactly. Well put, LK. ;)
-Not to mention that there are large swaths of land in the setting that are intentionally left blank (Lantan, Borderkingdoms, etc.). But, when criticizing with the intent of being critical, and not constructive, most people either aren't privy to all of the details, or intentionally ignore them.
No kidding.
This is probably a good time to point out that the 2E Realms had tons of "empty" space, and that many of those spaces were intentionally cut out by WotC at the advent of 3E.
If one thinks the FR map is too crowded and developed, then you have WotC to thank for that.
I don't know why they just didn't take the brave step of creating a vastly different and 4th edition setting...
I probably would have checked it out.
The answer to your question, though, is that they aren't going to just leave the FR the way it is (stuck with an "outdated" rulesystem). Of course they were going to update it, and for better or for worse the Spellplague and the time jump are how they chose to do that.
I think you're pretty accurate on that assessment, LK. The most egregious examples are probably the ones that use the major characters as the real heroes of their DM'd games, with the PCs just secondary characters (or worse, spectators), almost to the level of self-insertion. This really has nothing to do with the major characters, though - it can just as easily be a DM's self-created 'pet' NPC.
Yeah, that's something that many posters seem to forget.
I would like to contest that the death of Eilistraee was abrupt. It was anything but. We knew from the prologue of the first book in the trilogy that either Lolth or Eilistraee would die. Surely you did not expect Lolth to croak?
Oh come on, with a novel trilogy there are bound to be surprises. Don't act like it was obvious all along what would happen.
No kidding.
This is probably a good time to point out that the 2E Realms had tons of "empty" space, and that many of those spaces were intentionally cut out by WotC at the advent of 3E.
If one thinks the FR map is too crowded and developed, then you have WotC to thank for that.
-Yup.
Yeah, that's something that many posters seem to forget.
-Often "conveniently", too.