Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 remnant Jul 14, 2010 15:47:55	I'm sure nothing I'm going to say here is particularly original and new, but, I feel compelled to get it off my chest. I've given it over a year.  I bought the basic, 4e D&D books, sorta rubbed my temples a bit, and said, "Ok, you know what, its not the old D&D, but I can work with this." Then I started finding the FR material, and I was quite less than happy.  Beloved cities gone, characters wiped out, heck, even the novels felt... cheapened. At first I told myself, "ok, you just don't like change, and this material has been with you for a long, long time.  Stop being obstinant, give the material a chance.  See?  The art is pretty.  Look at the pretty pictures.  I'm sure they'll flesh things out, and even though things you love are gone, there will be new things to grow in their place". So, I gave it over a year, and loyally waited to get over myself and stop lamenting for the old material. Guess what?  Not happening. I don't know if the changes were just too broad, or the old material too engrained in my psyche.  I still love Eberron, for example, but the new FR just makes me feel nostalgic in a bad way.  I feel like an old man sitting on my porch listening to songs from the 30's, and hating new music no matter how much I try to give it a chance. I miss old FR.  It was like having a loyal, loving dog.  Only, instead of passing away, it gets run over by a bus, and in its place, you get this little wanker of a chuiaua who bites your friends, pees on the furniture, and is declared by Ceasar Milan to be beyond help. As much as there has almost always been varying levels of Drizzt hate in the FR community, I have to say that I felt like what was done at the end of the Transitions series is almost symbolic of FR as a whole.  That extra stuff, that stuff that didn't involve hacking a bad guy to bits, that's dead and gone, and we're left with a post apocalypic mess that, for all its creativity, now feels just generic.  Another fantasy setting, that never has that magical level of detail and depth, its just sort of... there. Maybe that's what is missing for me.  I really don't know.  And if you're enjoying the new stuff, I'm glad for you, really I am, because I wouldn't want FR to die off, even in its current state.  That would be worse than what has been done to it.  But unless they really put some magic back in it, I just can't do it. Ok, rant over.  I needed that.  Apoligies, thanks, and best of luck.
#2 sfdragon Jul 14, 2010 16:45:27	amen
#3 Dark_Wizard_02 Jul 14, 2010 21:23:10	Welcome to the club. Don't let the newfangled setting trip you up, the old Realms still exist, the community of fans is still active (perhaps in some instances more active than the new setting community).
#4 Nai_Calus Jul 14, 2010 23:44:10	There's a new setting community? And careful, there's a couple of people around these parts who fly off the handle if you dare to call New FR post-apoc. And yeah, I totally get you. I feel like some guy waving a cane and yelling at the damned kids to get off his lawn. :/
#5 Jorunhast Jul 15, 2010 11:51:24	You're preaching to the choir, brother!  Many of us hate what they've done to the Realms.
#6 SmartPaladin Jul 15, 2010 12:19:42	I could handled it, if it wasn't for the nuke button they pushed. But some of those changes I was all for, the changes to the core races (Note: I am talking about what would have been the core races of 3.X). The changes to Tieflings I wasn't overly happy with, them more or less writing out the Aasimar and renaming/giving us Deva in their place... Yeah... The changes to the Genasi were... Interesting...
#7 Mr_Miscellany Jul 16, 2010 3:01:20	It's a tough pill to swallow, to be sure. Some of us are making the best of it we can and trying to move on.
#8 meldread Jul 16, 2010 5:16:51	I don't think anyone would accuse 4E of being perfect. There are tons of things I loathe about it. (Die, Earthmotes, die.) Of course, at the same time there are tons of things I loathed about 3E, 2E, and so forth and so on. In the end, the world gives you lemons and you make lemonade. There are a few things about 4E that I do like which makes it more useful than previous editions for gaming. 1. Modularity. It's easy to take what you like and toss away what you don't like. You can make huge changes - even wiping entire nations out of existence - without really upsetting things too much. This is largely a result of a lack of lore, but the FRCG was also designed with this intention in mind. (Read "Not "FR"? No problem!" on page 4 of the FRCG. It is blasphemy for a die-hard Realms fan, but it is wondrous for a DM who wants a complete free hand.) 2. Deus es machina. Anything that I hated from previous editions can be eliminated as a result of the Spellplague or time jump. This comes with significant drawbacks, but this is the positive side of both. I can still use older lore as a base to build upon, making modifications and changes where desired or necessary, without feeling constrained by that same lore. 3. Warlock Knights' of Vaasa. Most people I've encountered who hate most things about 4E generally like the Warlock Knights' of Vaasa (or at least their concept). 4. Abolethic Sovereignty. I've found people to generally be divided on this, and the division comes along the lines of how much tentacles an individual believes should exist within the Realms. For me personally, Far Realms elements (beholders and illithids for example) have always existed in the Realms, so the Abolethic Sovereignty is not a huge issue. I would have preferred illithids, but they are a bit overdone. I like them because they are a different type of enemy that can be faced, one that cannot really be anticipated or understood in the same way as a traditional foe. At the same time, the way they've been designed - they are not an ever-present and immediate threat, meaning if you don't want to deal with them they can just exist off screen without issue. There are tons and tons of things about 4E that I don't like, but because of the first to points I listed, they can be managed more easily. In the end, though, I don't think the 4E Realms were designed to appeal to long time Realms fans, they were designed to appeal to new players to D&D. The pro's and con's of that decision can be weighed, but ultimately the Realms as always comes down to what you make of them.
#9 Diffan Jul 17, 2010 10:54:28	Well if you don't mind the 4E ruleset but hate the post spell-plague Realms, theres nothing stopping you from using all the stuff from 4E in the 1370+ Realms time-line. Heck, even the new magic system isn't all that different from 3.5 (you still have to memorize and prep spells if your a wizard) and I think it flows more with novels descriptions of what wizards do. I've never read a book where the wizard was contemplating preparing magic missile over sleep or any other minor details. And say there's some nugget of interest from the 4eFR, like the Warlock Knights listed above, or the continent of Returned Abier, you could just  as easily insert these elements into pre-spellplague Realms. As for the races, I actually like the retcon of Eladrin always being Sun, Moon, and Star elves and their separation from the green and wild elves.  Also, the ways they explained Shifters, Changelings, and Devas in the Realms also were pretty good IMO. And you could always say Dragonborn were Dragonkin or some other 3.5 source. I've always felt the edition dose not have to equal to the time frame of the setting. The two can be changed and switched to however the DM chooses. Though it does take some additional work.
#10 Einlanzer Jul 24, 2010 22:30:45	Well if you don't mind the 4E ruleset but hate the post spell-plague Realms, theres nothing stopping you from using all the stuff from 4E in the 1370+ Realms time-line. Heck, even the new magic system isn't all that different from 3.5 (you still have to memorize and prep spells if your a wizard) and I think it flows more with novels descriptions of what wizards do. I've never read a book where the wizard was contemplating preparing magic missile over sleep or any other minor details. And say there's some nugget of interest from the 4eFR, like the Warlock Knights listed above, or the continent of Returned Abier, you could just  as easily insert these elements into pre-spellplague Realms. As for the races, I actually like the retcon of Eladrin always being Sun, Moon, and Star elves and their separation from the green and wild elves.  Also, the ways they explained Shifters, Changelings, and Devas in the Realms also were pretty good IMO. And you could always say Dragonborn were Dragonkin or some other 3.5 source. I've always felt the edition dose not have to equal to the time frame of the setting. The two can be changed and switched to however the DM chooses. Though it does take some additional work. I like a lot of the new things in the realm.  The fact that a lot of big NPCs are dead I'm okay with, as well as the 100 year advancement of the timeline.The fact that it's more lore-light I can handle, and I like a lot of the changes to the cosmology and the races, although it's true that the Deva seem very random.   What I really resent about the 4e realms was how certain things I liked about the old realms were imposingly truncated when they could have just been shuffled into the background or left vague and in the hands of individual DMs... like all the gods and several of the unique cultures like the Old Kingdoms and Maztica.  They caused a little too much arbitrary and forced upheaval for me to be able to make peace with. I use a few "houserules" when dealing with 4e Realms, the most important of which are... A.  Returned Abeir only replaced portions of Maztica, and B.  I don't deal with silly god soap operas, regardless of all the lore behind it - in my games that lore is treated as mythology.  The deities that are labeled in the canon as dead or missing have in fact just faced diminished worship, and most of them are still worshiped in small pockets.  No one knows for sure what caused the spellplague or the collision with Abeir, but the mainstream fabled explanation is that Mystra was assassinated by Cyric and the weave collapsed.