What stories can you tell under the 4e realms framework that you couldn't tell under 3rd?
The fluff for the realms helps adjust the game mecanic rules. When wild mages ere introduced to the Realms, how was it done? Right, the Time of Troubles. Now there's story fluff to work in the mechanics of why wild mages exist.
;)
so, in that sense, some stories make more sense in the context of 4th. But others might become impossible.
Bruenor Battlehammer making a magic item would be impossible in 3rd, since you need a caster level to take Craft Magic Arms and Armour.
The Crystal Shard predates 2nd edition D&D, never mind 3rd edition. And it's not like R.A. Salvatore is much of a stickler for going by the game rules when he writes his stories, anyway.
Hells, there's nothing about the Realms that's really stopping a DM from having Picard and co from the Enterprise beam down and make an appearance if they really wanted them to (apart from the easily ignored skewed physics thing)... could even be amusing seeing Worf bring a bulette back to the ship for a pet. :D
How to adjudicate a type-II phaser is something I doubt most DMs would want to deal with, but ignoring that sort of stuff, you get the idea I'm sure...
Show
:coolcthul :coolcthul :coolcthul :coolcthul :coolcthul :coolcthul :coolcthul :coolcthul :coolcthul
:coolcthul :coolcthul :coolcthul :coolcthul :coolcthul :coolcthul :coolcthul :coolcthul :coolcthul :P
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18DELTA :coolcthul
What changes made with 4E jump out to you as good story points or character inspirations? I promised on another thread to try and be more affirmative and help you 4E guys out so...
1. This one covers story ideas and character background ideas. Refugees, rendered homeless by the destruction brought about by the geographical changes of our RSE! Refugees might be a social problem or a thorny political one that could spiral into a civil war in some state which has taken them in. There are numerous historical examples for inspiration, from ancient times (Jewish Exodus, Spartacus rebellion, etc) to the more modern (people fleeing ethnic cleansing in Africa or Bosnia or say the Iraqi refugee issue). Refugees might even be spellplagued.
But this need not be such a large scale thing, it might be more along the lines of something like Odysseus trying to get home for a decade only in the Realms version he never gets home! He instead has to find a new one along the way...
2. A cleric of a dead or subsumed deity on a quest for their god or goddess. Is it a lost cause where the journey is the tale or does it lead to the divine patron being rediscovered? Up to you....
3. Cold war between the new lands of abeir and some of the old countries. How do the populations on a race by race basis feel about and fit into this situation?
4. Are their problems between eladrin and regular elven types?
Well that's all I can think of for now
My current PC that I am crafting is a gnome from Luskan. His whole quest is to find out about gnomes. He thought he would have to go to ruined Lantan for the answers but it seems that he needs to go to the Moonshae Isles instead.
Building a keep on a appopriately sized earthmote.
Use a sneaky party with stealth and rituals but without a cleric to confront undead on the Thayan wastes.
Building a keep on a appopriately sized earthmote.
I actually found the possibilities inherent in populated earthmotes... especially populated moving earthmotes pretty exciting. I had already though of several ideas for Trading Motes based adventures (should I ever actually run a game, Realms or otherwise) and even an aerial combat (gliders/dragons/rocs/skyships etc) between motes that would be demonstrably different to what is going on on the ground... mostly just ideas though.
my question is this:
What stories can you tell under the 4e realms framework that you couldn't tell under 3rd?
Depends, were you less creative prior to 4e?
Personally I don't think there's any story that couldn't have been told under a previous edition that now, thanks to the arrival of 4e, suddenly becomes a posibilitity. That ability is tied to the limits of personal skill & imagination, not an edition.
18DELTA :P
I guess I was trying to get at a few things here, the most important for me was I wanted people thinking about the Realms now and the Realms before. Particularly in light of the developers claims about the necessity of their changes.
Then later I thought that was too negative so I reposted (as you can read above) changing the thread to something more about what people thought was getting their creative juices working about 4E.
CCs has afunny point about my initial post semantics wise but missed, I think, the real point I was trying to make. I wanted to get people talking and thinking about 4E, as I said above. And, again, I changed that notion when I realized that my framing would probably devolve into a flame war.
Basically I realized that I didn't do a good enough job providing a thought-provoking start to the thread, saqw how it might go negative and tried to redirect into a more positive vein so I could fade back into the woodwork.
I hope that clarifies things a little.
I framed the question that way originally because that was the sort of comment the developers made a lot leading up to 4E Realms release (i.e. our chnages are necaessary for new people to tell new stories).
Yes, Phil Athans and Bruce Cordell made this point with regards to the stories (esp. via novels) they are trying to tell in that recent Dragon article (it should be freely available). That is probably the least believable reason for the changes I've heard so far, because I don't believe only one story can take place in any given region before said region is "played out".
Yes, Phil Athans and Bruce Cordell made this point with regards to the stories (esp. via novels) they are trying to tell in that recent Dragon article (it should be freely available). That is probably the least believable reason for the changes I've heard so far, because I don't believe only one story can take place in any given region before said region is "played out".
I agree with you Rino. I wanted to throw that out there to see what people thought of that justification
It's utter nonsense, and an insult to the fans of FR that these two virtual outsiders would make such a claim.
While I disagree with their statements and their, apparent, actions with respect to the FR setting and its reimagining for 4th Edition I would not be in any haste to label them "virtual outsiders". Not least because checking back over their design, editing and author based credits I see that both have been involved in the Forgotten Realms since 2nd Ed (I think).
On the basis that they have, I think, been producing (in some capacity) FR material for that long I don't think that label is really appropriate. This isn't attacking the idea, it is bordering on attacking the people.
Show
Starting Points in the New Edition
Philip Athans: Discussions about a new edition of the FORGOTTEN REALMS world began in the late spring of 2005. As the FORGOTTEN REALMS novel line editor, I was pulled into the discussions early. I’m not quite sure when the idea of jumping the timeline forward was first proposed, or even who first proposed it, but after spending a couple weeks mulling it over, I was an early and enthusiastic supporter of the idea.
Bruce Cordell: At first glance, the century leap forward is the most shocking part of the new FORGOTTEN REALMS setting. It is a jaw-dropping change. But it wasn’t a decision made lightly. In fact, it was felt something drastic had to happen in order to breathe new life into a shared world whose well-trampled edges were quickly approaching. Many believed that if something bold wasn’t done to expand the canvas, the world would begin to die beneath its own extensive history of novels and game products.
How do you do something like that without reinventing the entire world?
A two-fold plan emerged: A great leap into the future would allow nearly every part of Faerûn to appear fresh to everyone, both new fans and old. No one could be intimately familiar with the previous century’s happenings. Every place would have some element of novelty simply because a century can’t pass without even the most stable of kingdoms seeing some shift or alteration.
The other part of the plan involved literally bringing completely “new” lands into the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting. With Ed Greenwood’s help, the real forgotten realm of Abeir returned to Toril, in the midst of a cataclysm of unleashed wild magic.
PA: By the end of June, Bruce Cordell, Richard Baker, and I were assembled as the FORGOTTEN REALMS revision team. That summer we participated in a series of long meetings in which we hammered out the FORGOTTEN REALMS 4th edition “Revision Guide,” a document that would later morph, with the help of a lot more people, into the 4th Edition FORGOTTEN REALMS Campaign Guide.
BRC: They were long meetings followed by long writing sessions to create drafts of what we’d just discussed, followed by more meetings. We talked about every realm, great and small, including the cosmology. Indeed, the cosmology we settled on as one that would work best for FORGOTTEN REALMS was the cosmology that the D&D core rules itself accepted—excluding the particular deities, of course.
PA: Before we got into the specifics of what the new edition of FORGOTTEN REALMS would look like, we wanted to be sure we had a clear shared understanding of what the FORGOTTEN REALMS was then, and what we all wanted it to be like. We worked together, and with a number of key people both inside and outside of Wizards of the Coast, we organized our principles for the new edition around nine core ideals.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FORGOTTEN REALMS Core Ideals
What is this world? What is it all about? Where should we be taking it?
1. It’s exactly what it says it is: a world of ancient realms to explore and discover.
PA: By the summer of 2005, there wasn’t a whole lot left of Faerûn to discover. We’d spent the last fifteen years or so detailing just about every nook and cranny of the map, in hundreds of books, game products, short stories, comic books, Dragon articles, and Dungeon adventures. There was hardly a square centimeter on the poster map that wasn’t detailed somewhere, and frankly it was getting harder and harder to find room to tell a story. Authors, game designers, and DMs alike were being pushed farther and farther off to the edges. We knew we needed new places to discover, and the ability to refresh the core FORGOTTEN REALMS so that even the Dalelands had some surprises in store.
BRC: Even my own first steps in novel fiction showed me how the novels and games were having to move to obscure spots to tell new stories. Darkvision takes place largely in Durpar, a country hardly even on the map. Stardeep was hidden away in a hardly visited eladrin realm behind the Yuirwood forest in Aglarond. Other folks were finding themselves similarly squeezed to the edges—even long-time writers in the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting. It was a trend the editors noted first. What do you do when all the ancient realms have already been explored and discovered?
Aside from jumping the timeline enough to be significant and splicing lost worlds back into the core setting, one thing we could do is to change how the very rules of D&D work. That opportunity was serendipitous, and it was a fantastic chance for us to see all of the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting through a completely new lens.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. It’s a thousand stories, all happening at once.
PA: From the novel line point of view, the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting has always succeeded because there is no core story. It isn’t a world where if you weren’t a member of, say, the Fellowship of the Ring, all you were really doing was watching the real heroes. The world has to have room for a 4th level D&D character, or the apprentice mage from the next novel, to save, if not the world, then his or her little part of it and not feel unimportant or left out.
BRC: In a world where Elminster is merely the tip of an epic level legion of NPC good guys, the opportunity for less powerful PCs and less epic stories was small. Certainly, NPC good guys exist all over the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting, but few of them should be as capable as the PCs. Because of the very nature of the player characters, they are special, a cut above other folks and even potentially touched by fate to one day take up an epic destiny.
PA: Even as we discussed the various agents of change that would help us introduce new elements for the D&D game into the setting, we knew that just like there shouldn’t be one set of heroes, there shouldn’t be one single agent of change. Though the Spellplague has had a huge impact on the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting, it’s not the only thing that’s happened in the hundred years between editions. It’s not the only explanation for why things work or look different.
BRC: Speaking of the Spellplague, even though I was one of its original proponents, I feel like the concept got far too much promotion, both prior to the release of the FORGOTTEN REALMS Campaign Guide, and in the FORGOTTEN REALMS Campaign Guide itself. At the time where this 4th Edition of the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting is set, over ninety years have passed since the Spellplague. Most folks in Faerûn don’t give the Year of Blue Fire a second thought or wonder how strange it was that there used to be a goddess of magic. Yes, it was a cataclysmic event in its day, but that day is long past. Many other factors are responsible for changes to the landscape and cosmology—so many that the Spellplague is mostly a memory (except for those places where pockets yet linger).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. It’s a place where your character can be the most important person in the world or die in anonymity.
PA: This was a message that should have been getting out all along, but somewhere along the way—was it the Time of Troubles?—a notion emerged among the readers and players that the FORGOTTEN REALMS was a world built for a small group of superheroes and a place to read about their adventures. It didn’t have room for more heroes. Wow, did we have to make sure people knew that wasn’t the case, and back that up with a world that put a greater emphasis on villains and that asked you to be the hero.
BRC: The new FORGOTTEN REALMS setting delivers bad guys in droves: the Shadovar and Thay, of course, but also strange threats out of Abeir, including not only dragon-ruled nations, but even realms recently ruled by primordials! And there’s that floating city of ancient creatures that hovers in a perpetual storm over the Sea of Fallen Stars. Just what is the Aboleth Sovereignty up to?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. It’s a fully realized world, full of history and legend.
PA: I think the best example of this is one we used in various presentations in the past. Core D&D will give you the rules for a +1 longsword, but in the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting that +1 longsword is the Platinum Tongue of Garthak, fashioned as the parade sword for Garthak Hammerfist, patriarch of the dwarven clan of Hammerfist, one of the ruling houses of ancient Gauntlgrym. Everything in the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting has a story.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5. It’s a vibrant, ever-changing world that is constantly moving forward.
PA: For years we’ve been closely watching sales trends of the novels and seeing that, without exception, books that move the world forward, however incrementally, tend to outsell books that go back into the past or that have less or no effect on the greater setting. What we call “Realms-shaking events,” like Troy Denning’s Return of the Archwizards series or Mel Odom’s The Threat from the Sea series, had become the rocky center of the FORGOTTEN REALMS novel line. As we talked about resetting the FORGOTTEN REALMS world, we knew that what we were really doing was establishing a new starting point, and that the world would evolve and grow from there.
BRC: The Realms-shaking events that drive sales for the novels are a dichotomy and ongoing tension in the game. From the point of view of game setting design, it’s hard to write a definitive “Guide to the FORGOTTEN REALMS” when you know that a year down the line, three different novel lines will have killed off, altered, or in some other way changed basic features described in that putative “guide.”
But as Phil notes, moving forward is fun. Not moving the game world side of things forward with the novels would mean stagnation for the game setting. Everyone wants to feel they are part of the same dynamic world described in The Orc King, Shadowrealm, or Swordmage.
PA: We made sure that at least some of the transition stories were told in novel trilogies. In these novels, the fans can see in detail the development of new or the destruction of old realms (like the establishment of the Kingdom of Many-Arrows or the fall of the city of Luskan in R.A. Salvatore’s Transitions series), changes in the pantheon (as in Lisa Smedman’s The Lady Penitent series and R.A. Salvatore’s The Ghost King), shifts in the halls of power (Paul S. Kemp’s The Twilight War series), or the reordering of the cosmos itself (in Thomas M. Reid’s The Empyrean Odyssey series).
BRC: Phil has nicely set me up to either ignore a chance to plug myself or dive in. I’m diving in: The Abolethic Sovereignty trilogy explores how the city of Xxiphu came to be stationed over Faerûn and what its presence portends, if strict vigil over its beslimed residents is not kept.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6. It’s core D&D “plus.”
PA: We started out with the absolute conviction that the FORGOTTEN REALMS Campaign Guide would render no part of the core D&D rulebooks obsolete and vice versa. Every D&D race, class, monster, and magic item has its place in the FORGOTTEN REALMS world, and we’ll give you more, like the swordmage and the genasi. No matter what, the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting is a Dungoens & Dragons world.
BRC: Indeed, core D&D and the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting have never been closer. A DM can pick up the FORGOTTEN REALMS Campaign Guide and use one or two of its nicely contained regions in his own game if he wishes. I think a lot of D&D campaigns will find themselves with genasi PCs, swordmages, and perhaps even spellscarred PCs touched by the fire of wild magic—even those campaigns that do not take place on Toril.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7. It’s contemporary fantasy.
PA: Though 3rd Edition D&D went a long way in updating the look and feel of the FORGOTTEN REALMS world, we knew we still had a long way to go before it felt truly contemporary. This core ideal informed pervasively. How do we preserve the spirit of the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting, while making it look like a 21st century fantasy property—one that would appeal to a contemporary audience? I think the art, the political and philosophical ambiguity, and the sheer scope of the revised setting shows you just how far the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting has come from its 1980s roots.
BRC: Here’s one example. The great and ever-increasing popularity of eastern fighting styles and eastern myths sees a similarly increased profile in the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting. Shou from down the Golden Way have continued to settle in Faerûn, and they have claimed a nation all their own west of the Sea of Fallen Stars that they have named Nathlan. Extraordinary feats of martial proficiency abound in these regions. When the day comes that the monk and related character classes sees the light of day in a future Player’s Handbook, you can expect Nathlan, Telflamm, portions of Westgate, and other places similarly Shou-settled to catch fire with possibility.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8. It’s 50% all new.
PA: Okay, don’t hold us to that 50% figure exactly. I’m not sure there’s even a way to measure what percentage of it is new, but that’s the core ideal we started with. We knew we wanted big parts of the map to be marked, for all intents and purposes: “Here Be Dragons.” This goes back to the first point: If the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting is a place for your characters to explore, there better be some stuff you haven’t seen before!
BRC: Apparently I’m example boy on this article. Well, here’s another: Returned Abeir—an entire content flush with new wonder and conceived by Ed Greenwood’s bountiful pen, no less. Other portions of Abeir fell into Toril, too, but they are now part of Faerûn: the dragonborn land of Tymanther and the genasi-ruled badlands of Akanûl.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9. We’re not retconning. We’re assuming that everything that was, was.
PA: I guess you could call this the “not throwing out the baby or the bathwater” rule. If it happened in a novel or in a game product—any part of the FORGOTTEN REALMS canon—it happened. We aren’t going to ask you to buy a copy of The Grand History of the Realms then throw it away. Every detail ever published on this massive setting is still there, is still a part of the history of this living, breathing world. We may have a hundred years’ worth of distance from it, but it happened, and all that history will continue to inform authors, game designers, players, and DMs as they continue to explore the FORGOTTEN REALMS world.
BRC: You know, there might be a couple niggling little details that the 4th Edition rules insist upon that we may just ignore. For instance, I doubt you’ll see a three-novel epic on how halflings grew, on average, an extra foot.
But barring strange little bits like that, if a story has been told about something to establish it in the previous setting edition, then another story describes how that feature reached its current manifestation in the 4th Edition FORGOTTEN REALMS setting—even if we haven’t yet told you that story. It’s a wide world filled new opportunity. I can’t wait for my Elfharrow elf barbarian character to go on his next adventure. When’s that going to be, Phil?
PA: The week after we get back from Gen Con Indy!
Philip Athans: Discussions about a new edition of the FORGOTTEN REALMS world began in the late spring of 2005. As the FORGOTTEN REALMS novel line editor, I was pulled into the discussions early. I’m not quite sure when the idea of jumping the timeline forward was first proposed, or even who first proposed it, but after spending a couple weeks mulling it over, I was an early and enthusiastic supporter of the idea.
Bruce Cordell: At first glance, the century leap forward is the most shocking part of the new FORGOTTEN REALMS setting. It is a jaw-dropping change. But it wasn’t a decision made lightly. In fact, it was felt something drastic had to happen in order to breathe new life into a shared world whose well-trampled edges were quickly approaching. Many believed that if something bold wasn’t done to expand the canvas, the world would begin to die beneath its own extensive history of novels and game products.
How do you do something like that without reinventing the entire world?
A two-fold plan emerged: A great leap into the future would allow nearly every part of Faerûn to appear fresh to everyone, both new fans and old. No one could be intimately familiar with the previous century’s happenings. Every place would have some element of novelty simply because a century can’t pass without even the most stable of kingdoms seeing some shift or alteration.
The other part of the plan involved literally bringing completely “new” lands into the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting. With Ed Greenwood’s help, the real forgotten realm of Abeir returned to Toril, in the midst of a cataclysm of unleashed wild magic.
PA: By the end of June, Bruce Cordell, Richard Baker, and I were assembled as the FORGOTTEN REALMS revision team. That summer we participated in a series of long meetings in which we hammered out the FORGOTTEN REALMS 4th edition “Revision Guide,” a document that would later morph, with the help of a lot more people, into the 4th Edition FORGOTTEN REALMS Campaign Guide.
BRC: They were long meetings followed by long writing sessions to create drafts of what we’d just discussed, followed by more meetings. We talked about every realm, great and small, including the cosmology. Indeed, the cosmology we settled on as one that would work best for FORGOTTEN REALMS was the cosmology that the D&D core rules itself accepted—excluding the particular deities, of course.
PA: Before we got into the specifics of what the new edition of FORGOTTEN REALMS would look like, we wanted to be sure we had a clear shared understanding of what the FORGOTTEN REALMS was then, and what we all wanted it to be like. We worked together, and with a number of key people both inside and outside of Wizards of the Coast, we organized our principles for the new edition around nine core ideals.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FORGOTTEN REALMS Core Ideals
What is this world? What is it all about? Where should we be taking it?
1. It’s exactly what it says it is: a world of ancient realms to explore and discover.
PA: By the summer of 2005, there wasn’t a whole lot left of Faerûn to discover. We’d spent the last fifteen years or so detailing just about every nook and cranny of the map, in hundreds of books, game products, short stories, comic books, Dragon articles, and Dungeon adventures. There was hardly a square centimeter on the poster map that wasn’t detailed somewhere, and frankly it was getting harder and harder to find room to tell a story. Authors, game designers, and DMs alike were being pushed farther and farther off to the edges. We knew we needed new places to discover, and the ability to refresh the core FORGOTTEN REALMS so that even the Dalelands had some surprises in store.
BRC: Even my own first steps in novel fiction showed me how the novels and games were having to move to obscure spots to tell new stories. Darkvision takes place largely in Durpar, a country hardly even on the map. Stardeep was hidden away in a hardly visited eladrin realm behind the Yuirwood forest in Aglarond. Other folks were finding themselves similarly squeezed to the edges—even long-time writers in the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting. It was a trend the editors noted first. What do you do when all the ancient realms have already been explored and discovered?
Aside from jumping the timeline enough to be significant and splicing lost worlds back into the core setting, one thing we could do is to change how the very rules of D&D work. That opportunity was serendipitous, and it was a fantastic chance for us to see all of the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting through a completely new lens.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. It’s a thousand stories, all happening at once.
PA: From the novel line point of view, the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting has always succeeded because there is no core story. It isn’t a world where if you weren’t a member of, say, the Fellowship of the Ring, all you were really doing was watching the real heroes. The world has to have room for a 4th level D&D character, or the apprentice mage from the next novel, to save, if not the world, then his or her little part of it and not feel unimportant or left out.
BRC: In a world where Elminster is merely the tip of an epic level legion of NPC good guys, the opportunity for less powerful PCs and less epic stories was small. Certainly, NPC good guys exist all over the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting, but few of them should be as capable as the PCs. Because of the very nature of the player characters, they are special, a cut above other folks and even potentially touched by fate to one day take up an epic destiny.
PA: Even as we discussed the various agents of change that would help us introduce new elements for the D&D game into the setting, we knew that just like there shouldn’t be one set of heroes, there shouldn’t be one single agent of change. Though the Spellplague has had a huge impact on the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting, it’s not the only thing that’s happened in the hundred years between editions. It’s not the only explanation for why things work or look different.
BRC: Speaking of the Spellplague, even though I was one of its original proponents, I feel like the concept got far too much promotion, both prior to the release of the FORGOTTEN REALMS Campaign Guide, and in the FORGOTTEN REALMS Campaign Guide itself. At the time where this 4th Edition of the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting is set, over ninety years have passed since the Spellplague. Most folks in Faerûn don’t give the Year of Blue Fire a second thought or wonder how strange it was that there used to be a goddess of magic. Yes, it was a cataclysmic event in its day, but that day is long past. Many other factors are responsible for changes to the landscape and cosmology—so many that the Spellplague is mostly a memory (except for those places where pockets yet linger).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. It’s a place where your character can be the most important person in the world or die in anonymity.
PA: This was a message that should have been getting out all along, but somewhere along the way—was it the Time of Troubles?—a notion emerged among the readers and players that the FORGOTTEN REALMS was a world built for a small group of superheroes and a place to read about their adventures. It didn’t have room for more heroes. Wow, did we have to make sure people knew that wasn’t the case, and back that up with a world that put a greater emphasis on villains and that asked you to be the hero.
BRC: The new FORGOTTEN REALMS setting delivers bad guys in droves: the Shadovar and Thay, of course, but also strange threats out of Abeir, including not only dragon-ruled nations, but even realms recently ruled by primordials! And there’s that floating city of ancient creatures that hovers in a perpetual storm over the Sea of Fallen Stars. Just what is the Aboleth Sovereignty up to?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. It’s a fully realized world, full of history and legend.
PA: I think the best example of this is one we used in various presentations in the past. Core D&D will give you the rules for a +1 longsword, but in the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting that +1 longsword is the Platinum Tongue of Garthak, fashioned as the parade sword for Garthak Hammerfist, patriarch of the dwarven clan of Hammerfist, one of the ruling houses of ancient Gauntlgrym. Everything in the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting has a story.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5. It’s a vibrant, ever-changing world that is constantly moving forward.
PA: For years we’ve been closely watching sales trends of the novels and seeing that, without exception, books that move the world forward, however incrementally, tend to outsell books that go back into the past or that have less or no effect on the greater setting. What we call “Realms-shaking events,” like Troy Denning’s Return of the Archwizards series or Mel Odom’s The Threat from the Sea series, had become the rocky center of the FORGOTTEN REALMS novel line. As we talked about resetting the FORGOTTEN REALMS world, we knew that what we were really doing was establishing a new starting point, and that the world would evolve and grow from there.
BRC: The Realms-shaking events that drive sales for the novels are a dichotomy and ongoing tension in the game. From the point of view of game setting design, it’s hard to write a definitive “Guide to the FORGOTTEN REALMS” when you know that a year down the line, three different novel lines will have killed off, altered, or in some other way changed basic features described in that putative “guide.”
But as Phil notes, moving forward is fun. Not moving the game world side of things forward with the novels would mean stagnation for the game setting. Everyone wants to feel they are part of the same dynamic world described in The Orc King, Shadowrealm, or Swordmage.
PA: We made sure that at least some of the transition stories were told in novel trilogies. In these novels, the fans can see in detail the development of new or the destruction of old realms (like the establishment of the Kingdom of Many-Arrows or the fall of the city of Luskan in R.A. Salvatore’s Transitions series), changes in the pantheon (as in Lisa Smedman’s The Lady Penitent series and R.A. Salvatore’s The Ghost King), shifts in the halls of power (Paul S. Kemp’s The Twilight War series), or the reordering of the cosmos itself (in Thomas M. Reid’s The Empyrean Odyssey series).
BRC: Phil has nicely set me up to either ignore a chance to plug myself or dive in. I’m diving in: The Abolethic Sovereignty trilogy explores how the city of Xxiphu came to be stationed over Faerûn and what its presence portends, if strict vigil over its beslimed residents is not kept.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6. It’s core D&D “plus.”
PA: We started out with the absolute conviction that the FORGOTTEN REALMS Campaign Guide would render no part of the core D&D rulebooks obsolete and vice versa. Every D&D race, class, monster, and magic item has its place in the FORGOTTEN REALMS world, and we’ll give you more, like the swordmage and the genasi. No matter what, the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting is a Dungoens & Dragons world.
BRC: Indeed, core D&D and the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting have never been closer. A DM can pick up the FORGOTTEN REALMS Campaign Guide and use one or two of its nicely contained regions in his own game if he wishes. I think a lot of D&D campaigns will find themselves with genasi PCs, swordmages, and perhaps even spellscarred PCs touched by the fire of wild magic—even those campaigns that do not take place on Toril.
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7. It’s contemporary fantasy.
PA: Though 3rd Edition D&D went a long way in updating the look and feel of the FORGOTTEN REALMS world, we knew we still had a long way to go before it felt truly contemporary. This core ideal informed pervasively. How do we preserve the spirit of the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting, while making it look like a 21st century fantasy property—one that would appeal to a contemporary audience? I think the art, the political and philosophical ambiguity, and the sheer scope of the revised setting shows you just how far the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting has come from its 1980s roots.
BRC: Here’s one example. The great and ever-increasing popularity of eastern fighting styles and eastern myths sees a similarly increased profile in the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting. Shou from down the Golden Way have continued to settle in Faerûn, and they have claimed a nation all their own west of the Sea of Fallen Stars that they have named Nathlan. Extraordinary feats of martial proficiency abound in these regions. When the day comes that the monk and related character classes sees the light of day in a future Player’s Handbook, you can expect Nathlan, Telflamm, portions of Westgate, and other places similarly Shou-settled to catch fire with possibility.
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8. It’s 50% all new.
PA: Okay, don’t hold us to that 50% figure exactly. I’m not sure there’s even a way to measure what percentage of it is new, but that’s the core ideal we started with. We knew we wanted big parts of the map to be marked, for all intents and purposes: “Here Be Dragons.” This goes back to the first point: If the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting is a place for your characters to explore, there better be some stuff you haven’t seen before!
BRC: Apparently I’m example boy on this article. Well, here’s another: Returned Abeir—an entire content flush with new wonder and conceived by Ed Greenwood’s bountiful pen, no less. Other portions of Abeir fell into Toril, too, but they are now part of Faerûn: the dragonborn land of Tymanther and the genasi-ruled badlands of Akanûl.
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9. We’re not retconning. We’re assuming that everything that was, was.
PA: I guess you could call this the “not throwing out the baby or the bathwater” rule. If it happened in a novel or in a game product—any part of the FORGOTTEN REALMS canon—it happened. We aren’t going to ask you to buy a copy of The Grand History of the Realms then throw it away. Every detail ever published on this massive setting is still there, is still a part of the history of this living, breathing world. We may have a hundred years’ worth of distance from it, but it happened, and all that history will continue to inform authors, game designers, players, and DMs as they continue to explore the FORGOTTEN REALMS world.
BRC: You know, there might be a couple niggling little details that the 4th Edition rules insist upon that we may just ignore. For instance, I doubt you’ll see a three-novel epic on how halflings grew, on average, an extra foot.
But barring strange little bits like that, if a story has been told about something to establish it in the previous setting edition, then another story describes how that feature reached its current manifestation in the 4th Edition FORGOTTEN REALMS setting—even if we haven’t yet told you that story. It’s a wide world filled new opportunity. I can’t wait for my Elfharrow elf barbarian character to go on his next adventure. When’s that going to be, Phil?
PA: The week after we get back from Gen Con Indy!
While I disagree with their statements and their, apparent, actions with respect to the FR setting and its reimagining for 4th Edition I would not be in any haste to label them "virtual outsiders". Not least because checking back over their design, editing and author based credits I see that both have been involved in the Forgotten Realms since 2nd Ed (I think).
On the basis that they have, I think, been producing (in some capacity) FR material for that long I don't think that label is really appropriate. This isn't attacking the idea, it is bordering on attacking the people.
While I haven't done any research regarding how long they have been producing material for the Realms, the attitude revealed is telling. The idea that only one thing can ever happen in one place (unless it's Waterdeep it seems) is so ludicrous on its face that it should have been laughed out of every planning meeting it was brought up in.
When I read stuff like the above with the discussion with Athas and Cordell and these points are raised again, it really bothers me. number one was perceived only, for the most part, and could have been better combatted through knowledge and honest and frank discussion. The second point was on the developers and writers. Their creative problems are theirs and shouldn't have influenced the realms at all. Can't think of stuff to do, change settings or change jobs for a change of pace to refresh the creative juices.
This crud wasn't necessary and it was done with little to no respect for the old guard realms fans. That's my perception. The developers may love fans and they may love the realms. I see no evidence of either. And every podcast, article or e-mail I see from WOTC seems to underscore this point. They don't give a flying fig.
As to respect for the old guard... niche markets are in something of a disfavor at the moment in popular business thought from what I can tell, so it really shouldn't come as a suprise that they did things the way they did. Happens all to frequently with a lot of different sorts of businesses, sometimes with great success, sometimes not. They see the bottom line as something that needs to grow and expand, while the niche being abandoned wonders why they weren't good enough and had to lose something they enjoyed. Just the way these things seem to work.
18DELTA (Chosen of Cyric)
While I haven't done any research regarding how long they have been producing material for the Realms, the attitude revealed is telling. The idea that only one thing can ever happen in one place (unless it's Waterdeep it seems) is so ludicrous on its face that it should have been laughed out of every planning meeting it was brought up in.
Quite possibly telling of the fact that there has been a strong push to simplify the Realms. Dark is darker and pretty much everywhere. People and plotlines have been removed left right and center and details are thin on the ground. All of this points to "game setting" not "coherent world building"... which is one of the ideas behind the 4E transition it seems.
Quite possibly telling of the fact that there has been a strong push to simplify the Realms. Dark is darker and pretty much everywhere. People and plotlines have been removed left right and center and details are thin on the ground. All of this points to "game setting" not "coherent world building"... which is one of the ideas behind the 4E transition it seems.
There's not actually a contradiction between a "game setting" and "coherent world building". Even if there was, FR is a game setting, and NOT a world building exercise. FR actually started as a place where Ed Greenwood set stories, and didn't develop a coherent identity beyond that for a while. Some of the more illogical and unrealistic parts of the setting wouldn't exist if there was a serious attempt at "coherent world building"; Waterdeep's economic prominence being one example.
There's not actually a contradiction between a "game setting" and "coherent world building".
Really? Because from my own personal point of view a lot of the things that suggest a coherent world to me (a well detailed and historically continuous timeline and geography with many interwoven plots, stories and defined personalities) have been described as presenting problems for players and DMs. There may not be a contradiction, your word not mine, but I would suggest that these two goals are currently viewed as being at cross purposes to one another. In my view (as in mine and only mine, I am speaking for and by myself not attempting to suggest this as general fact or in fact reflective of anyone other than the crazy people living in my own head :D ).
Even if there was, FR is a game setting, and NOT a world building exercise.
Very true, and you may notice that I never said it wasn't. I said that the attitude expressed in the article linked (as well as others I have faint memories of reading or watching) is indicative of those designers holding that view too. I would like, however, to disagree that the Voluminous Lore and Game Setting ideas are not a problem to one another but having not played in FR at all since the end of 2E I wouldn't feel at all within my rights to do so.
FR actually started as a place where Ed Greenwood set stories, and didn't develop a coherent identity beyond that for a while. Some of the more illogical and unrealistic parts of the setting wouldn't exist if there was a serious attempt at "coherent world building"; Waterdeep's economic prominence being one example.
I did actually know this. And actually to dismiss the "more illogical and unrealistic" elements as being impossible (paraphrasing) is, I am afraid, at least inaccurate. There are ways and means that, in my very limited knowledge of the world, everything could be brought about if enough time, effort and imagination were invested.
On top of that, I'm not sure what's wrong with Waterdeep's economic prominence, either...
It's the geography. It's all wrong for Waterdeep to be a major centre of trade, unless it's already a large and wealthy city which would itself be a trade destination. Except that it's become a large and wealthy city through trade, which is a circular argument if I've ever seen one.
Deep water port near a navigable river, relative abundance of roads leading to it from resource rich areas... timber, ores, minerals... ready access to foodstuffs, and the byproducts of said foodstuffs... not sure what else one would need to become a major center of trade.
People who need this stuff and can't get it closer to home.
What gets traded in a pre-industrial society is generally not high-bulk low-value goods. It's rarities, luxury goods, things that aren't easier to obtain locally. It's not that there aren't examples of grain being shipped long distances to feed a population, Rome being just the most famous example, but they usually involve significant political interests in an area. Timber just isn't worth it economically except to areas where it's really hard to find, the best example I'm familiar with being the import of timber from Lebanon and Turkey into Mesopotamia during Sumerian /times. Ore/minerals, there are a few cases (in the same era ) due to the requirements for bronze, with tin being moved from as far as Cornwall to Egypt and copper being a major export of Cyprus. Iron is a lot easier to find.
Toss in manufacturing and artisanship due to readier access to raw materials coming into Waterdeep, due to that deep water port making it an easy place to ship out of, and it makes even more sense with not only raw materials, but finished goods as well. Perhaps you might consider looking through Volo's Guide to All Things Magical, as it illustrates just how many interesting metals, woods, and minerals (gems and such) come out of the North, compared to most other areas, not just for magical use, but for industrial use as well.
By the same token, southern goods make port at Waterdeep and travel inland via caravan to those same landbound towns and cities. Compare it to New York City of the 1800's, and you'll see how a central location isn't always as good as a coastal one with a great natural harbor. ;)
It works for me.
But his point still remains really... nothing in the setting is going to do anyone without that requisite spark of imagination any good.
Oh I dunno about that.
I think what was great about the Gray Boxed set was that it grabbed you, drew you in and then kicked you out all smelling like the Realms and 100% addicted to it.
For new (and young) players I can see the FRCG and the FRPG doing the same thing.
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As to the OP's question, I think many answers to it lay in the forging of history as time moves ahead vis-a-vis all the elements of Abeir that now exist on or near Faerûn.
I can see a huge interaction coming between the continent of Returned Abeir and the lands of the Sword Coast.
We will also be able to tell stories of divine faiths being spread in the lands of Returned Abeir and the battles that will likely follow such efforts.
We **finally** get to see the Eladrin/Elves come full circle by their returning to Faerie. No longer in my eyes are Realms elves yet another soul crushing carbon copy of the elves of Dragonlance or Lord of the Rings.
That's something I truly disliked about elves in the Realms. Their entire history was one great big downer, full of failure and catastrophe. But no longer, as the sun has finally risen for them. So many stories to tell and legacies yet to be fulfilled by the elves/eladrin in the Realms.
We **finally** get to see the Eladrin/Elves come full circle by their returning to Faerie. No longer in my eyes are Realms elves yet another soul crushing carbon copy of the elves of Dragonlance or Lord of the Rings.
I prefer to think of it as Faerie coming back to them, not the other way around. Much like a parent doing a quick u-turn after realising that they have left their child at the petrol (gas) station they just left ;).
Arguing economic geography in this thread isn't appropriate.
Oh I dunno about that.
I think what was great about the Gray Boxed set was that it grabbed you, drew you in and then kicked you out all smelling like the Realms and 100% addicted to it.
For new (and young) players I can see the FRCG and the FRPG doing the same thing.
Funnily, that old gray box didn't do much for me when I first looked through a friends copy... the AD&D boxed set was much better I thought. Matter of taste I guess... having said that though, I didn't really think that much of the 3e FRCS book either compared to the AD&D box, though it was still a fairly good book. Don't much care for the 4e one though... even after having looked through it with a more generous mindset. Felt much more constricted than the previous books I thought, but that's just my opinion on the matter.
Really though, I still don't see anything possible now that wasn't possible before... at least in terms of themes or moods. Mechanics are certainly different enough to allow some stuff, but those same mechanics also close off a few stories as well, so it works out fairly evenly in that respect I think. Set dressing stuff, sure, that's different, but it's just backdrops, and nothing of really concrete difference. Point to Earthmotes perhaps, but there were still stories that could have been done on those solid clouds a few sorts of beings made, with much the same effect...
Oh I dunno about that.
I think what was great about the Gray Boxed set was that it grabbed you, drew you in and then kicked you out all smelling like the Realms and 100% addicted to it.
For new (and young) players I can see the FRCG and the FRPG doing the same thing.
No way jose! I got both of the books and I looked them over and my players looked them over and we werent impressed. The only reason why we are going to run a FR game and that I am interested in the FR is because someone had the edition 3 FR setting book and let me look through that. That book was good and then I started getting books from edition 2 and edition 3 that had information. The new books, by themselves, I would have not used the FR. I feel bad for anyone who uses just those books.
Point to Earthmotes perhaps, but there were still stories that could have been done on those solid clouds a few sorts of beings made, with much the same effect...
Not to mention that there were floating structures in the Realms prior to 4E.
Look up the Cloud Kingdom in the Stonelands booklet in Elminster's Ecologies. There was an entire nation of flying creatures living on 'solid clouds' just south of the Netherease Empire back then.
And Cloud Giants STILL live on clouds in The Realms, and there are plenty of locales in FR that always 'floated' above the ground (at least two towers I can think of off-hand).
There is nothing, and I mean NOTHING, that couldn't have been done in FR before, and Returned Abeir just looks like a mini-setting that got accidently printed in the FRCG.
There is nothing that you can do in Laerakond that you can't do in the already-established Realms. It serves NO PURPOSE other then to waste page count and take the place of something that was bad (but not as bad as something useless).
18DELTA (The Chosen of Cyric that is wondering what is NOW possible that wasn't before...) :lightbulb