Is it the 4e rule set? Mayhap you dislike the changes in the Realms? Could it be that both are to your disliking... Let us know, we thank you for your time.
Perhaps, this is already an answer; the lack of information.
Is it the 4e rule set?
No.
Mayhap you dislike the changes in the Realms?
I do.
Just for a informative gathering, I'm curious (without starting fights or hearing long list of drudgery) what it is that some FR fans find unappealing with 4e FR.
Is it the 4e rule set? Mayhap you dislike the changes in the Realms? Could it be that both are to your disliking... Let us know, we thank you for your time.
Since I am more of a book person and I don't get to play the PnP game very often, the rules changes don't bother me. But the fact that they felt the need to make such drastic changes to the Realms just so they can justify those new rules, well that's what I hate. There was just no need for the Spellplague and the 100 years jump and the death of major personalities. OK, kill of Mystra if you want to explain the new magic system. But don't rewrite the entire setting.
I always change the rules anyway, so thats no big.
The 'new realms' I can never get used to, mostly because it is inferior, and also because of the reasons why it was destroyed.
Back in my day, 'designing' wasn't done with sledghammer.
I love the 4e Rules and I love the 4e Realms as much as I loved every other version of the Realms after a baseball bat to the face...and yes they all got that baseball bat to the face. The difference was it was usually a street brawl beat down, instead of a drive by.
lol, nice analogy there...
I find the 4e rules uninspiring and lacking in several areas, but I also like many aspects of them. I'm rather so-so on them, though I'm trying to get more play-experience.
But the 4e FR is completely uninspiring and totally lacking in every area that I care about, nor do I appreciate the changes made. It's completely unsuited to my DMing style. Largely, the setting drives my campaign. I combine an existing idea with my own idea or requirement, and see where it spins off too. That's simply not an option in 4e FR, as it gives very little ideas or material to work with.
(Example, recently we needed a priest to heal a PC's pet tressym after it foolishly attacked an aboleth, so I looked up the Innarlith's religions, found Sharess, perfect, and ran with it. Literally: the PC is a Psionic speedster with Up The Walls and the rest, currently on a Parkour-run across Innarlith. Now the PC is interested in Sharess as a patron deity (she was looking for a god). Would I have chosen Sharess if it wasn't mentioned in the lore? Probably not. I'd have plumped for something for traditional and less interesting.)
Rules are irrelevant. One should theoretically be able to take any ruleset and apply it to any setting and get something workable. (I think the Red Wizards should have been divided by theme: necromancy, divination, various elements, etc. Then almost any ruleset could accompany them.)
The rules just don't feel like Dungeons & Dragons to me anymore and instead remind me of some sort of weird card game hybrid. Which really is just a disappointment to me because I do not play. I am a book guy (but not novels). So that means that I am very sad about the new ideology of "less is more". The books all have a "dumbed down" feeling to them and the information provided is VERY minimal. The Monster Manual is IMO the worst core reference book I have ever read-- everything from the (lack of) content to the GREAT BIG TEXT. I despise the creature do-overs. Eladrin are planar beings that are completely separate from elves gosh darnit and Archons are planar beings and not elementals. The fiends (including the Succubus retcon), Lamias, Gnomes... are a few more off the tip of my head. The whole skirmisher/controller/lurker... stuff really seems like some kind Pokemon thing or something.
Cause and effect.
My problem with the Realms are partially a result of the rules, but mostly for me its the retconning of canon lore combined with the removal/addition of lands and the time jump. Returned Abeir seems hokey and the Dragonborn seem forced down our throats. I don't really mind the Spellplague angle that much, although the Plaguewrought Lands and Underchasm remind me of combo of Dark Sun, Eberron, and Final Fantasy X somehow.
IMHO
Any Metallica fans here? Call me crazy, but I see D&D like Metallica. Bear with me...
1st edition was the "Kill 'em All" album. It was something new and different that was destined to become something HUGE.
2nd edition was the "Ride the Lightning / "Master of Puppets" era. They really came into their own developing on their original sound but growing as well. They are complex, but nearly every song is a sing-a-long classic, yet they never have a "hit" and have trouble garnering respect for both themselves or their peers from the mainstream.
3rd edition (and 3.5) is the "And Justice For All" album. The band takes their sound even a step further. Every song is epic in complexity as well as length. Old fans love the album and can't get enough of it. But, many new fans (who liked the shortened MTV version of the song "One") argue that they are just too complicated.
4th edition is the Black album. They reduced their sound to a common verse-chorus-verse structure and every song is a good length for the masses at rock radio. Now that they have a more generic rock sound this opens the doors for many more potential fans that they wouldn't have been able to reach solely playing heavy metal. Many of their original fans are outraged that their once favorite band has sold out and proclaim the pre-Black album material as the only true Metallica. New fans argue that the new sound is just evolution.
Fans of early Metallica are still huge listeners of their earlier works to this day but they still hold a grudge, refusing to even give any new material a chance because every time they do they are met with disappointment.
That Metallica comparison made me happy! It's very true, too. And it's funny because Master of Puppets is my favorite Metallic album and 2e is my favorite edition...Fans of early Metallica are still huge listeners of their earlier works to this day but they still hold a grudge, refusing to even give any new material a chance because every time they do they are met with disappointment.
Ahh, but not all of us true Metallica fans do this.
Or rather, we did turn our backs, once, but like Metallica we too went through growth and change and came to see their struggles as not unlike our own, thus including failure and mistakes aplenty and a very human recognition that when you get down to it they are just like us.
/off topic
I have noticed with US companies over the years that often a change in strategy will result in the complete destruction of a previously successful strategy. It's one of the reasons that none of the businesses I have led has ever banked with an American bank: there is always the risk that a radical change in strategy will result in a cancellation of credit lines. Of course, recent events have proven that my assessment of that particular risk was correct.
How does this relate to the New Realms? The New Realms are not really part of the "real" Realms and the new strategy doesn't address the real faults of the old strategy but is simply new for the sake of being new. Again, that's US business: the country that proved that the Emperor's New Clothes was more than just a fairy tale.
Rules, don't need them, I used a few new concepts 4e introduced and incorporated them into our rules, most of them are very boring and annoying, particularly the fluff part of the mechanics.
For the most part, I find the rules stream-lined to the way in which I perfer to play. To me, less mechanics for every, single, different situation isn't a boon but a bother. Also, I'm quite happy they divorced the way role-playing was built into the game mechanics which I always thought was stupid. In addition, I also like the fact that each class is usefull through every level of play rather than 2 or 3 classes shining all the way. And lastly, there isn't much room for uber-powergaming, min/max-ing, and everything else you'll find on the d20 Character Optimization boards.
As for the Realms, while I believe it would have become stale and boring I had no problems with it's previous incarnation of 3e. Mystra was always True Neutral alignment to begin with and had evil Chosen in my campaigns as well. The excessive amout of deities didn't really bother me nor did the ever present level 20+ NPCs everywhere. But what they've done doesn't really bother me either and I've come to accept whats happened and go with it. For the new Realms, I've decided to make the best of what's happend and do my best to make it worth playing in.
Anyhow - for the aforementioned older brother, the problem is definitely the rules, which he also doesn't think needed changing. On this point we most definitely disagree, as many of the things that I've loathed about 3e ever since its inception are the very things that he considers its highlights. On the whole, while I don't think that the rules needed to be changed (well... OK, they did. But between Pathfinder, Complete Arcane/Mage, and Tome of Battle, most of my problems are addressed), I also don't think that they shouldn't have been changed. Unfortunately, two of the dominant personalities of the group do think that they shouldn't have been changed, which is why the rest of us play our 4E Realms game on a different day, when those two are not available.
For myself, I would have preferred slightly less time to rebuild. While having nicely packaged intervals like a century is good sometimes, one of the things I was really excited by from the preview materials was the idea that I could play in a post-apocalyptic version of a familiar world. What we eventually ended up with didn't really do that concept justice, unfortunately, but at least there's a framework to build on if I want to turn back the clock and run a game set during the height of the Spellplague.
Want to change things? Just blow it up! No one will know or care!
Well, guess what. We DO!
I really hate the 4e Realms because the changes themselves have a very high level of suck. Not only is the setting completely unrecognizable, but I actually lack the desire to play in it. In 3e, I still WANTED to play in the world. Now, I don't anymore.
The hundred year time jump, the reckless interpretations of forcing canon to fit the rules set, and the reworking of the entire mythology of the FR just to make 4e work with it were colossal, unbelievably stupid mistakes.
The new FR follows the following principles:
1) Ecology, what is that? These little things like the land being able to support the population, how people get their crops and food supply, they don't matter anymore. Everything is PC-centric. If it's not about your PC's, it doesn't matter. How is THAT a "Campaign Setting?"
2) Random Encounters, what is that? Everything is story driven, so you're basically being driven down a colossal railroad to level 30.
3) Logic, what is that? No, Baldurs Gate is not capable of financially supporting itself, nor would it allow millions of Spellplague refugees inside it's walls.
4) If it's cool, do it! It couldn't POSSIBLY have any consequences! I don't want to RP in a world where ICA does not equal ICC! Period!
5) Those old characters that made the world wonderful? trash them. We don't need them! They're only part of the world's history now..
I'd give specific examples, but I've given them all before on other threads.
6) Deities: Eilistraee. GONE. This alone was enough to make me walk away. If you have a cleric of Eilistraee and you hit 1377, what happens to your PC? They didn't even care enough to publish rules for it. It obviously wasn't important to them.
Mystra. GONE. I would love it if Cyric died instead. That would make me pleased as punch.
Bane=Chaotic Evil. Would someone PLEASE explain to me how an Iron Fisted, Rigid Tyrant who demands absolute obedience is CHAOTIC? This is beyond counterintuitive.
I could go on, but I'm starting to choke on my own bile.
The setting:
:thumbsdow:thumbsdow:thumbsdow:thumbsdow I like the rules just fine. As for the setting, I like a few things here and there, but for the most part I didn't think that most of the changes were necessary, as they weren't necessary to convert to 4E nor to draw in new people. Personally, I think a far softer edition changeover could've been accomplished, and that's what I would've preferred.
Just for a informative gathering, I'm curious (without starting fights or hearing long list of drudgery) what it is that some FR fans find unappealing with 4e FR.
Is it the 4e rule set? Mayhap you dislike the changes in the Realms? Could it be that both are to your disliking... Let us know, we thank you for your time.
I dislike the format and themes built into the 4E ruleset but there are features in it that could get my attention anyway.
I won't touch 4E FR or most anything directly connected to the transition at this time. The changes made required destroying most of the main points that drew my attention to FR in the beginning. Had WotC chosen to take the basic ideas and start a different setting built to address the themes used within 4E FR, my opinion might be more mutable. I refuse to support the destruction of things that I enjoy by spending money on their successors. In this case that means all 4E FR novels, 4E FR sourcebooks and DDI are off limits unless something major changes my opinion.
4e realms.... Lol I think I can type my disappointment forever.
I pity the fan who starts his fr experience (and his campaign experience in general) with FRCG. It's completely barebones. Reminds me of the greyhawk gazeteer, a glance at an almost dead world.
Unnamed rivers appear and disappear in the maps.
We have a continent with cities that appear in text but not in the map (see dagger falls). Then there are regions like my beloved erlkazar full of baronies and stuff with a map showing the haunted spirit soaring and NOTHING else.
It's believable. Loudwater's population is diminished because except secomber everything else lies in ruins...but its a popular trading stop for caravans and river boats. I guess merchants must make a great profit in the graypeaks or high forest.
Lore is everywhere, history is recorded in 1 paragraph for every 4-5000 years. Btw if my campaign dares to continue to 1480 what year is it?
I guess I could go on but it's getting late. The product is inferior to its predecessors in every aspect imaginable. It's not a "light" fr it's a "lacking" fr.
Don't get me wrong I like some of the ideas presented, but I strongly recommend not to support/defend a product like this. I'd hate to see such a campaign setting product again in the future.
The worst thing for me and my playing groups though, is the new policy of the campaign settings in general. I don't want to play online. I don't want to pay for pdfs. I'm a book lover. I'm playing a hobby which needs 1000 pages just to learn the basic rules, I thought it was pretty clear.
So DDI is not for me and without it I won't see the support fr will get in the future. Novels will continue I guess but I'm mainly a gamer not a fantasy reader ( 3-4 per year max and mainly for fluff reasons for our campaigns). I miss supplements and adventures of the old days. We had a great time in undermountain, liberating dagger falls, travelling the realms with an annoying marco volo and I was thrilled purchasing waterdeep:city of splendors 2e, it made me feel it was a product made of love for the realms not just for profit. We enjoyed CotSQ and the last trilogy too, though they were too much combat oriented with a very light plot which I had to enhance considerably to make them more alluring.
I guess I don't find it practical to subscribe to magazines which may have 1 article, that may be useful for me, that I may print it to use it in our gaming table. I prefer to go to my hobby store, see what I like even sneak peak for a while and be able to take and use the product wherever we decide to play.
Tnx for reading everyone and gl with your games
4E Realms? I dislike everything about the new Realms.
The New Realms I despise even more - mostly because of the reasons for the changes. Instead of giving the customers what the big rival, the MMOs, can't give them - an intricate tapestry of stories within stories, a setting that isn't just there for you to level up but serves as a somewhat believable and extremely complex world (whether you want to introduce this complexity into your campaign is still up to you after all), roleplaying opportunities (and the encouragement to roleplay in the first place), interaction with intriguing characters that have a place in the world, and so on - WotC trimmed the "fat" off the Realms and attempts to win back customers who had wandered off to the MMO competition by giving them what MMOs offer, too - just without the cool graphics and sound. Quite sad, actually.
1st edition was the "Kill 'em All" album. It was something new and different that was destined to become something HUGE.
Nice comparison, but everybody will have their own opinion as to which album correlates with which edition. But if Kill 'em All was 1e, then I have high hopes for 5e - which is Death Magnetic ;)
DB
I'm apart of the minority in which I like both the 4e rules and the 4e Realms.
For the most part, I find the rules stream-lined to the way in which I perfer to play. To me, less mechanics for every, single, different situation isn't a boon but a bother. Also, I'm quite happy they divorced the way role-playing was built into the game mechanics which I always thought was stupid. In addition, I also like the fact that each class is usefull through every level of play rather than 2 or 3 classes shining all the way. And lastly, there isn't much room for uber-powergaming, min/max-ing, and everything else you'll find on the d20 Character Optimization boards.
As for the Realms, while I believe it would have become stale and boring I had no problems with it's previous incarnation of 3e. Mystra was always True Neutral alignment to begin with and had evil Chosen in my campaigns as well. The excessive amout of deities didn't really bother me nor did the ever present level 20+ NPCs everywhere. But what they've done doesn't really bother me either and I've come to accept whats happened and go with it. For the new Realms, I've decided to make the best of what's happend and do my best to make it worth playing in.
For the most part, I fall into this category.
I like the new rules set, and the ease of play while maintaining the ability to diversify and customize your character.
There is plenty of room within the classes to become uber-powerful or be a specialized role player. Overall, well done.
As far as the setting, let me start by saying that I was a huge fan of the original gray boxed set. The Forgotten Realms of later editions became a land of super-powerful NPC's that you tripped over every 7 steps. The lands were spread out and over-detailed in my opinion. The old realms made a great back drop for books, but I did not like its role playing applications. The "Points of Light" change with the drastic shift of Spellplague are okay by me. I hope they leave it as vague as possible, and allow the world to breath on its own from campaign to campaign.
One reason people say that a high level ex-adventurer could be found running every bar is because that is what all those Volo supplements showed us. I love and loathe those books at the same time. I like the detail but hate some of that nonsense about npcs.
The only thing I do not like about 4E FR is that they are dragging out the Mask story. Yes it makes for good reading and sells novels but I am sure many people wanted to see how his church fit into 4E FR. If I ran a game I would just add him in there and ignore what happened to him and Shar. Still I would have liked it to have been resolved by now and I don't want to have to wait another 5 years to see him in an Article or game supplement. I will live though.
Apocalyptic changes ARE a cop out.
Only if the designers don't really want to do an apocalypse but just can't think of any better way to solve their problems. We can't be sure in this case whether it was implemented purely as a problem-solving measure or whether the design team honestly thought it was a cool idea from the get-go.
They are the worst sort of cop out because in the end, it promotes MORE OF THE SAME.
I actually think continuity reset is a worse cop-out. Although, admittedly, that's what I'd like to see done to Dragonlance...
But yes, eventually New Realms will end up suffering the same bloat that Old Realms did and start collapsing under its own weight, because the problems that arise are inherent to an evolving setting. Hopefully it'll take another two decades to get to that point, and the next apocalypse (you know there'll be one, they're like punctuation in the story that is Realmslore) will get a little more careful attention.
Nice comparison, but everybody will have their own opinion as to which album correlates with which edition. But if Kill 'em All was 1e, then I have high hopes for 5e - which is Death Magnetic ;)
Nope. 5e will be Load and Re-load...
6e will be St. Anger with 7e is Death Magnetic. Which translates to about the year 2030 at D&D's current pace. ;)
DB
The Realms (as a campaign setting) before always felt too crowded, too difficult to navigate and a bit over-the-top. The new Realms cleaned things up, left the world a bit more open and managed to explain the rules changes well in-world. I don't understand the hate, I just feel that (once again, as a campaign setting) it just Works Better.
The 4e material that i have seen so far it just seems like they are trying to reinvent the wheel but going backwards in the attempt in it.They have come up with all these fancy names like swordmages,controllers,artillary and defenders.There is no need for that.A wizard is a wizard ,if they want to swing a sword then they can be a fighter/wizard but instead they just put all that good work that was proven to be good and that alot of people liked and they threw it in a pinyatta and bashed the f-word out of it,then they dumped gasoline on it and burned it back to the abyss.
I know that i can just not use the 4e material in my campaigns and i could not buy any of it either,but you know what I shouldnt have too.
I cant say anymore or they will kick me off these forums,I have been warned once already and i dont want that to happen because i would hate to lose acess to all the knowledge of the fans who post here.
Just for a informative gathering, I'm curious (without starting fights or hearing long list of drudgery) what it is that some FR fans find unappealing with 4e FR.
Is it the 4e rule set?
It's not the rules, they're fine. I still think it's possible to do a Classic Realms setting (as I call it) under 4e, to address the changes without resorting Realms 'Shattering' Events. Returned Abeir could have explained most of it, all by itself, without the need for the Spellplague and a 100 year jump. Too much I think.
Mayhap you dislike the changes in the Realms? Could it be that both are to your disliking... Let us know, we thank you for your time.
I don't care for the changes at all. If I approach them with the proper mindset however, they don't bother me nearly as much.
The Spellplague and the 100 year jump have made the Realms all but unrecognizable to me. Trying to reconcile what I know with the way things are now, just ticks me off. Instead, I prefer to think of the 4e Realms as a possible reality, unrelated to the Realms I'm most familiar with.
This is fantasy, so the idea of a parallel Realms works for me; after all, its a common enough concept in science fiction ;). With this mindset, I'm not opposed to a 4e Realms campaign (someday), where otherwise I would be.
It's not the rules, they're fine. I still think it's possible to do a Classic Realms setting (as I call it) under 4e, to address the changes without resorting Realms 'Shattering' Events. Returned Abeir could have explained most of it, all by itself, without the need for the Spellplague and a 100 year jump. Too much I think.
IMO, the only really big changes that needed explaining was 1) The change in magic, 2) The increase in numbers of the Dragonborn, and 3) The change in how divine magic works (with Clerics, Paladins, etc becoming Ordained and not at risk of losing their powers). I think they could've been handled easily enough in a few ways.
1) Mystra changes the rules. Easy as pie. Kelemvor, the instant he took power, changed the rules of death. Then after reflection, he changed the rules, again. She's only been a goddess for 14 years, and for most of that time she wasn't really doing her job well. Once she settled down after the Trial of Cyric and took a closer look at her job, what it entailed, and how she was doing it, she could've decided to change the rules for any number of reasons.
2) Dragonborn already existed in Faerun. Just give them the ability to procreate, say there were more of them running around Faerun than people imagined, and you're set. Or hell, have them all come popping into Faerun through a portal, like they did with Mountain Orcs (think it was Mountain Orcs, during the Orcgate Wars).
3) This is the hardest, and hasn't even been explained, now. Personally, I'd say to just retcon history and say it always worked like that.
And boom, you're done. No muss, no fuss.
For the new realms I am definately on the fence. If someone asked me to play in a 4e FR campaign I would consider testing the new feel. I dont see the spellplague or the 100 year jump as a problem for enjoying stories in the realms, and the additional detail a DM can feed me could temper my hunger for realmslore. I have high standards though, so I guess only a DM with extensive knowledge of the old could satisfy me.
All in all my gut feeling says to stay with the excellent material of the 3.5 era untill well into 2010, after which I might make the investment to step over to 4 edition D&D, DDi and its (hopefully better fleshed out) Forgotten Realms.
The rules:
The setting:
I pretty much concur with GreenKnight on this.
The big thing is that the changes to the setting were (and are) totally unnecessary. And deeply hypocritical (for example, apparently FR had too many deities, according to quite a few 4e designers - so what is one of the first things they do after removing a bunch? yes, that's right, introduce even more). The Realms always were special...now, the 4e Realms are just...yet another fantasy setting.
The Realms (as a campaign setting) before always felt too crowded, too difficult to navigate and a bit over-the-top. The new Realms cleaned things up, left the world a bit more open and managed to explain the rules changes well in-world. I don't understand the hate, I just feel that (once again, as a campaign setting) it just Works Better.
Most of the previous FR fans liked the Realms for the very reasons you dislike it. By "cleaning" it up and making it "more open", the Realms lost their very uniqueness, and turned it into another yet generic fantasy setting. Which it *never* was pre-4e.
The 4e Realms: 2/5
I got the tail end of 3e, so I didn't have many books when 4e came out and the rules made a lot of sense to me so I adopted those rules.
I never was a big fan of the Realms, and I got into it when I heard that the FRCG/FRPG were basically destroying all of the old stuff and making the setting more to my liking. I got it and was initially very happy. But as I go on and on preparing campaigns and stuff my like has went down a lot. I still do not mind that the book destroyed a lot of the old FR that I didnt like but I greatly dislike the minimal detail that the books have. Its one thing to get rid of the piles of information that had acvcrued but its another thing to get rid of all of that and then not really explain whats there in it's place.
Which it *never* was pre-4e.
Dunno about that - it felt pretty darn generic when I first played Baldur's Gate. If you aren't already familiar with the setting, there's really very little about it that distinguishes it from the common view of 'fantasy' (unlike settings like Eberron, Dark Sun, Midnight, or Arcanis, for instance, which have unique conceits that set them apart from the crowd). Distinction comes with further exposure - whether to the background as presented in previous products, or the development as presented in future ones. Either way, you have to play it or read about it extensively in order to get any sense of what makes it special. Once you have, of course, you start to realize that what makes it special is that thousands of other people have had their stories told in it before you got there, and some of those stories are still going on when you arrive, which can be off-putting to people who like to feel that they're making a big difference in the world.
The thing is, while I can sympathize with people feeling attached to the depth of lore involved in the setting (I do the same with Star Wars and Doctor Who) there does come a point at which you literally cannot cater to new fans and still maintain the level of detail demanded by the old ones. There's just too much of it, and the more that accretes, the less adjustable the setting becomes, and the more increasingly you run into situations like we had playing Shadowdale where the three people at the table who knew something about Realmslore spent over an hour of table time trying to use out of character knowledge to puzzle out a riddle while the rest of us sat around twiddling our thumbs (the ironic thing was, because those peoples' knowledge of the setting was not nearly as perfect as they thought it was, their solution was almost totally wrong, which goes to illustrate the point: the more material there is, the harder to keep track of it all it becomes).
Viz. less drastic changes such as what GreenKnight is suggesting, the problem with those is that they lack oomph. With something that's going to be your flagship setting and become the new RPGA standard, you don't want to kick it off by sailing a laden vessel through calm waters - that's just not exciting enough. Something needs to happen to shake things up. Now, it's distinctly possible that if too many somethings happen, the effect is somewhat diminished, which is why I would have preferred that the timeline had started with the immediate aftermath of the first Spellplague outbreaks rather than waiting until things had more or less settled down again. That would have given the setting something instantly recognizable and compelling for new players while maintaining just enough continuity for the old ones not to be too put off. Jumping a hundred years does have its benefits as well, however, since it adds to the wealth of fallen empires to be explored (of course, since I'm not a fan of dungeon delving, this is less of a benefit where I'm concerned).
But I think I've gotten somewhat sidetracked. The point is, as long as the only thing making the Realms unique is its wealth of lore, the only way that it's not going to be generic is through interacting with it. And every so often, something like this is going to have to happen to open up the field for more people to start interacting with it. The only way for the people who are already there to get back what they think they've lost is to keep interacting with it, bringing what they had back to their own tables to bridge the gap between what they knew and what they have yet to discover.
Once you have, of course, you start to realize that what makes it special is that thousands of other people have had their stories told in it before you got there, and some of those stories are still going on when you arrive, which can be off-putting to people who like to feel that they're making a big difference in the world.
Thousands of other people within the setting or without?
If you mean within the setting--well, that's what happens when you aren't the first person on the planet.
If you mean outside of the setting--I doubt that the tally of people who've shaped the official setting numbers in the thousands, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
Also, I don't quite understand the contention that the Realms were overly detailed.
It isn't so much that they're overly detailed - it's that the detail is so diffuse and comes from so many different sources that it creates a divide between people who are familiar with those sources and people who aren't - which can be problematic when you have both at the same table, particularly if some of the players know (or think they know) more than the GM does. If it's the GM who's the knowledgeable one, it's less of a problem (although you still sometimes run into issues where the GM throws out a clue based on what he believes is common knowledge but about which the players have no idea). I've seen this issue first-hand, and observed how quickly it kills the fun for the people who aren't in the know.
Of course, reducing everything to the bare bones and then releasing additional information piecemeal in a subscription-based format isn't exactly going to help in the long run, but for now it makes it easier to get 'in.'
Thousands of other people within the setting or without?
I may not have been clear with that line - what I was trying to say is that the specific conceit of the Realms is that the modern setting is built on the bones of countless ancient civilizations, and that eventually the current civilizations will join them. This makes it impossible to understand the setting at a glance, which is problematic if you're trying to sell it to a new audience. A related issue is that because the setting is based on the concept of evolving over time, there's a lot of stories ongoing that come from official, 'canon' sources - and a lot of people don't like to step on canon. The latter is a problem with player mentality rather than the setting itself, but the setting is easier to change than peoples' minds.
It isn't so much that they're overly detailed - it's that the detail is so diffuse and comes from so many different sources (...)
Good point. Many people have been saying this for years, and I think the novels are mostly responsible for this. TSR and later WotC wanted us to buy them, so they made sure that the various plots were exclusively dealt with in the novels. How many discussions have we had about novels either not being canon or at least dealing with more down-to-earth plots you didn't have to follow if you wanted to learn more about place X / organization Y / event Z... But of course, when WotC told us how unwieldy and unfun the Realms were, and how they set out to remedy their shortcomings, what did they not do? Change the novel problem. Why? Because they still want us to buy them.
In fact, now it's even worse. With any other setting, if you want to know about a certain region, you just buy the sourcebook. With no sourcebooks coming out for the Realms ever again, you have to find out which novels dealt with the place, subscribe to DDI, find out which Dragon articles (if any) dealt with the place, re-order those, and hope you have enough material to work with. What this boils down to is buying a pig in a poke and having to invest lots of work to boot. Or you come up with something yourself - but if you have to do that anyway, why bother with a bare-bones campaign setting in the first place?
DB
"Those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them."
I'm glad you brought that up, because it seems to me that a great portion of Realmslore is about people forgetting the lessons of history and having to be reminded of them the hard way. In fact, the theme is brought up several times in The Orc King - when Bruenor is confronted with evidence that perhaps orcs and dwarves have not always been mortal enemies, his first instinct is to reject it or reevaluate it in terms of his prejudices.
The idea that empires fall - and are replaced by other empires, which fall in turn - is predicated on the idea that people don't always learn from their mistakes.
"If we don't have big explosions, no one will pay attention." is effectively what you're suggesting.
Yes, that is what I'm suggesting, although expressed somewhat less elegantly than I would prefer. People are attracted to spectacle, and if you want your product to open with a bang, then you'd better provide one. If your only audience is people who are going to be excited about something no matter whether there's spectacle or not then you don't have to worry about this, but if you're trying to attract new audiences, you want to be noticed, and unfortunately the 4e label isn't quite bold enough to do that by itself.
That speaks to me of an infantile need to express oneself in the lowest common denominator imaginable.
Ideally, one should express oneself to multiple denominators at once. In a situation such as this, the lowest common denominator of today will eventually become a higher multiple, who will in time come to look down on the lowest common denominators of the future.
In a world based around character development, depriving people of the joy of discovering those characters and learning new things about them is, quite frankly, a violation of the very philosophy of character development.
It's not just a world based around individual character development, however - there's an element of generational character development involved. Eventually you have to move on to new characters and new stories. You can see it pretty clearly in Star Wars (there's a good deal of consensus that the classic trilogy era should have ended with, or to some, before the New Jedi Order series, and that the Swarm War and Legacy of the Force series represented scraping the bottom of the barrel as far as those characters' potential goes).
Is this an elitist argument? Absolutely. But you know something? I'm not ashamed of that. Far from it. I want my games to be inhabited by the smartest people possible, not the lowest common denominator.
There's nothing wrong with elitism in the right places. However, this isn't necessarily the right place for it. If I might use an example - the people in my group who derailed the Shadowdale game by using out of character knowledge of Realmslore to solve a riddle are not the smartest people in the group, as at least one of them would be the first to admit. They're just the most focused readers, and they like to appear more intelligent than they are by spouting out facts that the rest of us don't know because we just haven't been exposed to them. If you're going to be elitist, then you have to take care to separate the impression of intellect from the actual possession of such.
But of course, when WotC told us how unwieldy and unfun the Realms were, and how they set out to remedy their shortcomings, what did they not do? Change the novel problem. Why? Because they still want us to buy them.
Unfortunately, I don't think this is ever going to change as long as the novels are the primary vehicle for advancing the metaplot. Dragonlance got around that problem by making adventure modules the primary vehicle, but from what we've been told of the 4e marketing strategy, that isn't likely to happen here.
I've had similar discussions about Doctor Who before, which manages to get around the problem by the blanket declaration that the setting has no canon (which, given that it's all about time travel and thus future events can easily overwrite past ones, is really the only sensible approach to take). However, that's a series in which each major event is fairly self-contained, and instances of specific continuity are often separated by weeks, months, or years. What we're dealing with here is an evolving serial (in TV terms, something like Lost or Heroes), in which a certain measure of continuity is required.
Actually, the TV model provides an interesting perspective. Thinking of the Realms as a TV series universe, Old Realms would be the original program and New Realms would be the spinoff - like Star Trek TOS vs TNG, for instance, or the disconnect between Stargate SG1 seasons 1-8 and 9-10.
Or maybe I'm just weird.
Unfortunately, I don't think this is ever going to change as long as the novels are the primary vehicle for advancing the metaplot. Dragonlance got around that problem by making adventure modules the primary vehicle, but from what we've been told of the 4e marketing strategy, that isn't likely to happen here.
I've been brought up on DSA, Germany's biggest RPG system and setting, and it's vastly different from D&D in more ways I care to count. The metaplot - that evil thing that discouraged teenage MMO players from switching to D&D because they'd have to read, Bob forbid, and was therefore mostly done away with by WotC - is DSA's biggest draw and has been for over twenty years. Any event that will go down in future sourcebooks later on has always been exclusively dealt with in adventure modules, and novels deal only with major events long after they've been covered in adventures and supplements. (And they're much better than TSR's and WotC's dime novels, by the way, but that's another story.) As far as business is concerned, that may not be the most profit-oriented modus operandi, but it sure is customer-friendly. Then again, DSA isn't owned by a big corporation, but by a small company whose proprietors are some of the very first DSA authors from the early eighties, at least up to last year when they sold the IP to an equally small company also being run by, well, nerds - imagine WotC being owned by Greenwood and Schend, for example. Not only because of that I'm much more inclined to believe in the DSA line developers' and authors' love for the hobby. D&D? Not so much.
What I'm trying to say is, you can have success without jumping on bandwagons and trying to appeal to everyone whatever the cost; you don't even have to be a big corporation to achieve success and become the market leader. That all changes were strictly motivated not by artistic decisions, but by thinking about the bottom line - and only the bottom line, I'm afraid - is what disappoints me the most with 4e and the New Realms. Sorry for the rant, just came over me ;)
DB
I may not have been clear with that line - what I was trying to say is that the specific conceit of the Realms is that the modern setting is built on the bones of countless ancient civilizations, and that eventually the current civilizations will join them. This makes it impossible to understand the setting at a glance, which is problematic if you're trying to sell it to a new audience.
I don't find this point to be particularly compelling. The idea that the setting is built on the "bones" of other civilizations is part of what makes the Realms the Realms, and if that doesn't appeal to people they should just try a new setting (and by the way, the 4E Realms does nothing to take away this concept--it's still there). Also, not everyone found it "impossible" to understand the setting because of this concept. If that were true, the FR would have had few if any fans...which wasn't the case.
The idea that the setting is built on the "bones" of other civilizations is part of what makes the Realms the Realms
But it's not something you can see at a glance. I was responding to the assertion that the Realms isn't generic by the counter-assertion that until you see it from the inside, it appears generic. It doesn't have an easy tag line or hook to draw you in, and without diving into it there's not a lot to distinguish it from Greyhawk apart from a slightly cooler title (which was offset by the slightly less cool original logo) and the fact that most of the CRPGs are set in it. It's only once you're on the inside that you see that designer after designer and author after author have put a lot of work into detailing the generic framework.
Consider it like this: Greyhawk is a sandbox with some basic toys in. Eberron is a sandbox with more exciting toys in. Dark Sun, Planescape, Spelljammer, Midnight, Arcanis, Birthright, Mystara, etc. are each sandboxes with different toys in. Forgotten Realms is... a really, really big sandbox, with some basic toys in, and some more exciting toys buried under the surface here and there. Once you get in and start playing and uncovering some of the other toys, it can get really interesting, but if you're just looking at it from the outside all it's got going for it over Greyhawk is how much sand there is to work with, and how many other kids are playing in it.
And this is why it'll continue to be a problem. All they've done is dug up the sand a bit, brought some more toys to the surface, and buried some of the older ones. Now all the older kids who liked playing with those toys are getting upset and leaving instead of digging for their favorites, and others are coming in to take their place. Eventually it'll get all crowded up again, and they'll have to go and do the whole thing all over again, which will bury more toys and unearth different ones. Until they actually go and build a jungle gym in the sandbox to make it really stand out, they'll never be able to target a distinct demographic and will always end up burying someone's favorite toy. Of course, if they did build a jungle gym it wouldn't be the same sandbox anymore, so this problem has no solution except for those who got their toys buried to dig for them, bring their own toys to the sandbox, or find a different toy that they can have just as much fun with.
But of course, when WotC told us how unwieldy and unfun the Realms were, and how they set out to remedy their shortcomings, what did they not do? Change the novel problem. Why? Because they still want us to buy them.
Unfortunately, they didn't heed their own actions of making the Eberron novels non-canon. It seems to be working out well for that setting. I would still have bought the FR novels if they were non-canon. I wish the designers had simply realized that the novel could be just a "What If?" of the happenings of the Realms. Then all the complaints and gripes would've been silenced (for the most part). Instead, we have the current atrocity.
Why don't you ask LK and Rino what happens in my D+D game every other Friday Night?
It's a very good game, and between all of us there's enough Realmslore to choke ICA to death, but we don't use it to bring OOC information IC unless the PC's actually discover a clue to what's going on.
But it's not something you can see at a glance. I was responding to the assertion that the Realms isn't generic by the counter-assertion that until you see it from the inside, it appears generic. It doesn't have an easy tag line or hook to draw you in, and without diving into it there's not a lot to distinguish it from Greyhawk apart from a slightly cooler title (which was offset by the slightly less cool original logo) and the fact that most of the CRPGs are set in it. It's only once you're on the inside that you see that designer after designer and author after author have put a lot of work into detailing the generic framework.
That's...kind of how it is with just about anything. You need to look close to see the detail. Again, I don't find this point to be compelling, sorry.
Consider it like this: Greyhawk is a sandbox with some basic toys in. Eberron is a sandbox with more exciting toys in.
More exciting for you, perhaps, but not for everyone. Given the choice I'd actually rather play in Greyhawk (although I think Eberron is fine).
Why don't you ask LK and Rino what happens in my D+D game every other Friday Night?
It's a very good game, and between all of us there's enough Realmslore to choke ICA to death, but we don't use it to bring OOC information IC unless the PC's actually discover a clue to what's going on.
Agreed--in our game there's never been a problem with people disrupting the fun because of what's "canon" and what isn't, etc.
Which one do you use? How old is your game? Etc.If you ran "A Blight on the Land," Hhune is a high level fighter with some PRCs.
If you didn't, he's either an 8th level Fighter or an 8th Level Aristocrat, depending on which version you used.
I was very happy with the Realms and I miss it. Having vast amounts of information available on the Realms never bothered me-in fact, it motivated me to try to collect as many of the old sourcebooks and novels as possible. And I don't see playing in a campaign in which players have varying levels of Realms-knowledge as a problem. The whole point of role playing is to act and think like a different person. When you don't act in terms of what your character would know, it's called meta-gaming. If you are really incapable of dividing player knowledge and character knowledge, play a bard and/or loremaster.
realms: the dumbed down writing, lack of detail, killing off of gods, are the top three which make the realms stink like rotten fruit to me.
im not sure if it sounds right, but anyone else get the impression that the 100 year progression and spell plague not only was a big plot device blanket to cover up bad ideas, but acted as a huge middle finger to previous editions as well?
straying off topic with the last novel series i read was the lady penitant trilogy and i never felt more offended by a novel since hickmans dark blade trilogy. the first and only time i threw a 4 book novel series into the recycling bin.
either wotc caved to drow hating fanboys who wanted eilestraee dead because "every drow is good" or their back to basics theme was too complicated with eilestraee in it.
straying off topic with the last novel series i read was the lady penitant trilogy and i never felt more offended by a novel since hickmans dark blade trilogy. the first and only time i threw a 4 book novel series into the recycling bin.
either wotc caved to drow hating fanboys who wanted eilestraee dead because "every drow is good" or their back to basics theme was too complicated with eilestraee in it.
Yeah, not only did Eilistraee's death upset me, but it puzzled me too, because I thought she was actually a popular goddess among fans.
Yeah, not only did Eilistraee's death upset me, but it puzzled me too, because I thought she was actually a popular goddess among fans.
They killed her and changed the Drow that followed her so that the drow could go back to their roots. Evil and under Loths thumb...
eek gads, you have me derailing my own thread!
:P
They killed her and changed the Drow that followed her so that the drow could go back to their roots. Evil and under Loths thumb...
I understand the stated reasons. That doesn't mean I agree with them--I find the whole situation questionable.
Because, for some bizzarre reason, they thought the settings popularity wasn't a positive indicator that it was already 'correct'.
Unlike Paizo, they never bother to ask the fans what they wanted, and even when we rammed our opinions down their throats, they still insisted they 'knew better' then all of us.
They thought the Realms were 'broken', and they 'fixed it' - its as simple as that.
For all I know they may have been right - only time will tell if their decision to change everything was the right one.
They thought the Realms were 'broken', and they 'fixed it' - its as simple as that.
For all I know they may have been right - only time will tell if their decision to change everything was the right one.
Well, even if the 4E Realms turns out to be popular, the idea that it was "broken" before must surely still be in the realm of opinion.
to those who don't like good aligned drow, she was a fluff buffer.
i don't think most people tend to notice drow as a race usually don't come up to the surface for anything more then a seasonal raid so for most gaming tables not taking regular excursions into the underdark and want a presence for drow in their game could use the clerics of the lady to act as one reason or another. either as a magnet for evil drow to flock to or as one of those questionable encounters.
to those who liked good aligned drow and didn't want the stigma of being called drizzt clones, whatever the attention to some gaming tables the mere mention of drow cites clones. (unless of course its a totally evil drow) eilestraee provided purpose, cause, and ability.
another point as the goddess of redemption ( of a sort) she was the light at the end of the tunnel, she broke the static evil of that race and offered a genuinely intruiging alternative for those who didn't even need to play drow. her dogma, the hunts, the visual of them to me proved to be the most "fey" like of the elven gods whom more or less are angry war gods with pointed ears. corellon, im talk about you lol.
bringing the thread back on course, the total snub of this point by the devs was not cool with me.
I certainly didn't consider them 'broken', but the designers seemed to agree with a lot of people who did.
The 'right' or 'wrong' part really only applies to the Realms from a financial standpoint, and it's still way too early to tell.
Basically what we have here is a very elite group of men (I doubt any women - one of those would have had enough common sense to wack them all in the head) who had an idea of what THEY felt the Realms should be, and changed it so EVERYONE could play in the 'correct' version of the Realms, as they pictured it to be.
Because, for some bizzarre reason, they thought the settings popularity wasn't a positive indicator that it was already 'correct'.
Unlike Paizo, they never bother to ask the fans what they wanted, and even when we rammed our opinions down their throats, they still insisted they 'knew better' then all of us.
They thought the Realms were 'broken', and they 'fixed it' - its as simple as that.
For all I know they may have been right - only time will tell if their decision to change everything was the right one.
Wait, are you talking about 4e Realms or stimulus package? ;)
-Let's not go too in-depth with "bashing" of the rules, or whatever. No one did anything, but Crossroads' post made me think, and critiquing/supporting/hating/loving the rules isn't really the topic as much as picking what it is that you like/don't like about the 4e Forgotten Realms.
The OP's post does include "The rules" so there's nothing wrong with discussing them.
Rules are as much a part of the setting as anything else. Given the amount the Realms were changed to accomodate the (4E) Rules, talking about them is entirely appropriate.
I agree with that premise. Mr. Kretzer, who no longer posts here, posited that they were all really wanna-be novelists themselves, and that the world didn't allow them the openings to write the stories they wanted to write. I don't think this is entirely accurate, either.
However, the quality of the writing in many of the novels has dropped off a bit, with the exceptions of Paul Kemp and occasionally, Mr. Salvatore. (The Orc King, A+, The Pirate King, D-) I was appalled by the "Recovering Myth Drannor" trilogy. There's even a huge continuity error in it now. If you look at the dates of the novels, Miklos Selkirk is both alive and dead at the same time. I'm not even sure how that works.
Plus, that's actually the biggest weakness of the Shades. They have no way of preventing PC's from casting True Ressurrection on Miklos, because all it takes is Commune. "Is Miklos Selkirk Dead?" If your god isn't evil, would he come back after the way that he died? SURE! If PC's would, he would too.
So, novels can occasionally throw a monkey wrench into things.
Chris, you're assuming that players can't keep in-character and out of character knowledge separate.
Sorry I'm late back to this thread... been busy the last few days.
I am assuming that players can't keep IC and OOC knowledge separate because, in my experience, enough of them can't that it becomes a problem. In my group, about half of us can: unfortunately, the half that couldn't in the situation I keep citing were the GM and the GM's two best friends. I can keep that kind of stuff under control in my games, but not theirs. I've had similar problems in play-by-post games based on popular book series (where we've actually had to change bits of the lore because of people referring to things that they shouldn't know about IC) and so far it's cropped up in both of the Realms games and most of the Deadlands games our Saturdray group has played, and it appears quite frequently in all of the Star Wars games I've played with that group and others.
I know it's not a problem for everyone's group, but so far I haven't been blessed to be in a group for which it isn't a problem. And for such groups, the more source material there is, the more there is to argue about because in shared worlds the contributors are not always consistent, the players' memories of the material can get more cluttered, and they end up making calls based on references in other works (which may or may not refer accurately to the original events). For instance, the other main GM in my group was planning on running a SW Sith War game starting during the Battle of Ossus until I pointed out to him that the Battle of Ossus occurred literally a matter of days before the end of the Sith War - he'd never read the original comics that dealt with it, and had gotten the impression from other works that he had read that it happened at the beginning of the war. We had a several-hour-long discussion about that era in which he tried to use inaccurate second-hand knowledge to argue against information that I'd picked up by reading the original material over the course of the previous week.
It's the same problem as the people who think they have an encyclopedic knowledge of how the rules work, but actually don't, and get the game bogged down into minutiae... and then the next week, when the situation comes up again, they say exactly the opposite (I've experienced that problem twice this month... the guy can't make up his mind whether he's using the actual 3e opportunity attack rules or his weird and twisted houserule in which leaving and entering threatened squares provokes attacks).
---
Anyway... had a conversation the other day with the guy who thought the setting changes were a cop-out the other day, and while he still thinks that in general apocalypses are bad moves, he does agree that they're only really a cop-out if they're done badly, and so far he hasn't been directly confronted with anything in game that he thinks is really bad. His complaining so far has been exclusively in general terms rather than specifics, and he's actually enjoying the game.
Of the people in the group that's actually playing in 4e Realms, only two had strenuous objections at the time of release, and I believe that those two are slowly but surely getting into the groove of it. The two who won't play are still ardent naysayers, but I imagine that given time and exposure they'd be more amenable to it as well (when there are more books out, I suspect the one guy will read them and assimilate them into his overall view... and eventually one of the two new GMs in our Monday group is going to want to run a 4e game for the Saturday group, and the other guy who won't play won't have a choice anymore).
I would replace the word "Elite" with the word "Influential."
I agree with most of your post.
While I also talk to many people who were BIG fans of the Realms - some of whom had some 'official standing' at some point - and everyone seems to have a slightly different take on things.
In a recent exchange, I realized none of these 'theories' were exclusive. In fact, I think I'm leaning heavily toward enbracing them all to some degree.
What we are talking about is a group of individuals who were in charge of re-presenting (NOT representing) the Realms in 4e. The mistake many of us made - including myself - was to try and lump all of these guys motives together into one 'clandestine plot', when the simple truth is, they all had their own reasons for what they did, and all of us are probably right to some degree.
I offer as evidence the fact that no two of them were saying the same things before the books were released, and even afterwards to some degree. If you listen to the podcasts - especially ones with more then one designer present - it becomes apparent that they weren't even listening to each other!
They each were hearing what they wanted to hear - mostly that they could 're-imagine' FR the way they wanted - and then closed their ears to just about everything else.
I still think at least one person went out of his way to sabotage FR, because he personally disliked it, but thats neither here nor there. I'm sure the rest of them thought everything they were doing was "very clever", and he just gave them enough rope to hang themselves.
The OP's post does include "The rules" so there's nothing wrong with discussing them.
I was going to bring this up myself, but since I'm arguing with LK in another thread, I didn't want it to appear like I was going into 'attack mode' like some folks do (what happens in a thread should stay in that thread).
Anyway, I agree with you, and found it odd that he was saying the rules shouldn't be discussed.
However, I would also like to agree with him in part, or at least in spirit - State which you like or dislike, and perhaps a few words stating why you feel that way, but don't turn this thread into another Flame-bash.
I like the intellectual discussions we have around here, and a lot of the vitriol gets in the way of honest - or at least, less emotional -discussion.
I think LK does not want this turning into "Edition Wars". If that seems to be happening someone will come in here and close the thread. So folks should probably watch what they say in certain rules posts.
-Rauric gets a gold star sticker (Do they still do that in schools?). It's good that some people think.
I am assuming that players can't keep IC and OOC knowledge separate because, in my experience, enough of them can't that it becomes a problem.
-People always cite this. Luckily, I guess, this has never happened to me. Mind you, I run a homebrew setting, so ultimately, only *I* know certain things, but my players don't even use their extraneous D&D knowledge to benefit themselves. You know, the ol' (as it is described in the DMG) "DM put a trap, but he wouldn't not put a way to deactivate the trap, so we should look hard, because it'll be here somewhere".
Luckily, I guess, this has never happened to me. Mind you, I run a homebrew setting, so ultimately, only *I* know certain things,
I never get to run my homebrews
I have an awesome fantasy-historical 4E setting set in 1939 in which the Great War never ended (due to the invention of warforged making the whole 'war of attrition' concept kind of moot), but nobody wants to play that...Er... right. Sidetrack. I would say that the danger of abusing OOC knowledge of Realmslore is slightly higher than it is in other settings with a similarly large body of background knowledge because there's the mentality (at least among the people that I know personally) that it all forms part of one big story and thus (if the people I know personally are not total aberrations) there are more people who obsessively study every aspect of it (as opposed to settings like Star Wars, which it's common for people to disregard segments of it according to their personal tastes, or like Kingdoms of Kalamar, which is also horrifically over-detailed but which actively discourages trying to memorize everything, or like Rokugan, which probably has as much or more lore than Realms but it's impossible to know most of it unless you also play the CCG because AEG is not terribly good at providing plot updates for the benefit of those who only play the RPG).
I never get to run my homebrews
-A D&D setting "set" in a more-or-less contemporary world? Interesting.
I would say that the danger of abusing OOC knowledge of Realmslore is slightly higher than it is in other settings with a similarly large body of background knowledge because there's the mentality (at least among the people that I know personally) that it all forms part of one big story and thus (if the people I know personally are not total aberrations) there are more people who obsessively study every aspect of it (as opposed to settings like Star Wars, which it's common for people to disregard segments of it according to their personal tastes, or like Kingdoms of Kalamar, which is also horrifically over-detailed but which actively discourages trying to memorize everything, or like Rokugan, which probably has as much or more lore than Realms but it's impossible to know most of it unless you also play the CCG because AEG is not terribly good at providing plot updates for the benefit of those who only play the RPG).
-I disagree. There is nothing "specific" to the Forgotten Realms that causes people to want to use out-of-character knowledge any more or less than any other setting with an established history, characters, and so on. In Star Wars games that I've been in, people have used their knowledge of Star Wars to their characters' advantage, when it was iffy if the characters even knew such things to begin with. As I used the example of before, in the DMG, it explains how players can use out-of-character knowledge sans a setting, just using logic concerning the back-and-forth give-and-take nature of the game itself (as in, the DM presents a situation with a solution, the players solve it, move on to the next situation, and so on and so on and so on). Hell, even a Dragon Ball Z RPG website that I played on when I first got the internet had people using their own knowledge of things, as opposed to their characters' knowledge.
-I think that certain people tend to use out-of-character knowledge to their benefit with specific elements of the Forgotten Realms- the two-scimitar wielding Drow Ranger, for instance. That is a player thing, not a setting thing, however. That is, that is something that players choose to like and emulate, and the setting itself doesn't espouse or eschew those kinds of things.
Maybe we should check the ink in the books to see if there's some sort of substance that forces people to be pricks and use OOC knowledge when they play in the Realms... ;)
-Apparently, there was something in the 4e books that caused the ink to smudge easily, so you never know...
-
There is nothing "specific" to the Forgotten Realms that causes people to want to use out-of-character knowledge any more or less than any other setting with an established history, characters, and so on.
Seconded...
Seconded...
Thirded... if that is a word...
Really, it's people that choose to use OOC knowledge, in any game, if they have it and want to use it.
No setting puts it in anyones lap and makes them use it... that is about as stupid a statement as I have ever seen...
*NEWS FLASH* FR brainwashes people into using OOC!
It's complainers / rules-lawyers finding new things to complain / rules-lawyer about. If it was a home-brew, they'd complain about something else.
The only time I've done it myself was in a Star Wars campaign, where the DM dropped HK-47 (the infamous evil assassin droid from Knights Of The Old Republic) on us. I had my character react with fear and dread, and explained that it was really impossible to do otherwise. But this was after HK-47 made some veiled death-threats from the get-go, so it still made sense to do so.
Fortunantly, my players trust me to provide them what I think is best for them; no one argues with me when it comes to realmslore. So I am free to change the setting to whatever I see fit.
Basically what we have here is a very elite group of men (I doubt any women - one of those would have had enough common sense to wack them all in the head) who had an idea of what THEY felt the Realms should be, and changed it so EVERYONE could play in the 'correct' version of the Realms, as they pictured it to be.
everything other than what I've quoted you on, I either agree with wholeheartedly or have no real arguement.
I'm curious though. Have you been reading a lot of Robert Jordan? I ask because that part of your post, I swear to the Creator, could have been written by any of the female characters of his Wheel of Time series.
And I hope you take no offense to this, but I assume your being tongue in cheek or even outright sarcastic, because the point is completely rediculous. women simply are NOT so much more logical or full of common sense than men that they would have stopped them from making such a stupid decision.
Humorous though.
aaaanyway. I'm not really digging the Forgotten Realms in 4e. I don't hate it, it just seems less interesting. In previous FR i could start out in relatively safe civilized lands and work my over to the frontier where things were already "points of light" or start out in those areas and have a rougher time early on or pretty much anything. We had a simple house rule that no playable race was genetically or magically inclined toward any alignment, so if you were a teifling or a half dragon or some such it was a matter of how you were raised and how you reacted to peoples expectations of you, we usually just lessened the "racism" of the old days with mild in house retconing, etc. basically we made the realms our own, but it was an interesting enough setting on it's own that we didn't feel the need to make a whole new one most of the time. I enjoyed the fact that there were a bunch of legendary figures running around, and to be honest, we didn't interact with them all that much. Sure, there were a zillion epic NPCs in faerun. who cares? there's no reason for any of them to show up ever in a campaign if you didn't want them to.
I was bummed about Mystra's death, but on the other hand I love that if she had to die, it was Cyric that killed her. If you read the avatar books in which Cyric and the second Mystra become gods, it's perfect, and made me want to find books detailing the whole thing. I don't like that some of the other gods died simply because, well...Cyric kills Mystra, cataclysm, magic changes, gods war, ??, profit? That's really how i see the execution of the changes that have been made. It's like they had some cool ideas, and then used those ideas to lure the realms into a dark alley so they could brutally violate them in darkly obscene ways better not spoken of in a civilized setting.
Now, only the much more phallic sky gods remain. The femininity has been taken out of the realms, and that's what a lot of the more feminist women object to. Eilistraee. Gone. Mystra. Destroyed. Chauntea...second rate goddess, because PC's don't need to worship a god who's main worshipper base is farmers.
This is what I object to, too, because they destroyed the "Feel" of the world. Eilistraee was my favorite deity out of all of them, because as the deity of the biggest lost cause ever, it was so heroic to worship that god. Taking away that heroic choice from players was a jackass mistake.
They made others, but that's the one I consider the worst.
That's actually bad GMing.
The correct statement should not be "Yes."
The correct statement, as far as the GM is concerned, should be neither "Yes" nor "No." It should be "You can TRY."
You don't tell them whether or not they're going to succeed or fail. You just tell them they can try it. If the action is REALLY stupid, you say "Are you sure?" That's all. Then you let them take their lumps.
-That's a crackpot theory. Femininity has not been forcibly removed from anything. Chauntea, Tymora, Shar, Selûne, Red Knight, a whole bunch of others, they're all still there last time I checked.
Yep. And a number of male deities were excised from the Realms, as well. It's disingenuous to say there was some sort of misogynistic agenda going on when male deities like Lathander, Talos, Helm, Azuth, Velsharoon, Savras, Selvetarm, and Vhaeraun all got the ax, as well. As for this...
Chauntea...second rate goddess, because PC's don't need to worship a god who's main worshipper base is farmers.
She's still in the books, right alongside the other Greater Gods. Her treatment in the book is no different from any of the other Greater Gods, and she doesn't appear to be all that different from prior editions, so one can hardly hold her up as an example of a sexist agenda.
Hell, if you look at the details, she came out better in the 4E transition, not worse. In 3E, she was in the House of Nature along with Silvanus and Ubtao, two other Greater Gods. So despite being a Greater God, she shared her domain with two other Greater Gods. Really, the House of Nature came off like the Faerunian slums, with a host of gods packed like rats in there. And now?
Chauntea is in Green Fields, and is the one and only Greater God there. She rules alone, now, rather than sharing rulership. And with her having also been Yondalla, she's at the head of her own mini-pantheon. That, to me, seems like a step up.
They made others, but that's the one I consider the worst.
They made so many fundamental changes, and that's your pick for the worst of them?
DB
Considering the realms has one particular overbearing threat that is in complete ascendancy and that's Shar, I can't really see this point being valid at all (everyone took significant boots to their power). Hell, nobody else even gets any importance as an antagonist in the realms IMO except FOR Shar. She's behind all the most significant metaplot in 3rd edition, she's behind the metaplot (what little there is really) of 4th edition (having successfully manipulated an idiot into killing Mystra for her) and now has control of the largest and most predominant Empire in the realms.
Not to mention as pointed out they killed a whole *lot* of Gods, removed others (Mask) and killed a bunch of male NPCs/depowered them/crippled them. Everyone on a certain side of the coin (non-evil) got served a fail sandwich in the transition to 3rd edition to 4th edition. As many of these female NPCs and Gods were good aligned, and good aligned characters got the biggest axe taken to them in 4th edition, it really shouldn't be this hard to realise why the changes focused on a lot of these characters.
It was really that "Good" got done with a whacking stick.
Chauntea...second rate goddess, because PC's don't need to worship a god who's main worshipper base is farmers.
This point doesn't even make any sense, she gets as much attention really as anyone else manages to in the books (And is still a greater goddess last I looked). This is just completely baseless.
-That's a crackpot theory. Femininity has not been forcibly removed from anything. Chauntea, Tymora, Shar, Selûne, Red Knight, a whole bunch of others, they're all still there last time I checked.
Plus Sune, Lloth, Auril. I know you said a bunch of others but I thought they were kinda important powerful female players in the Realms. Auril is now the goddess of Storms so that is a pretty big deal. Maybe Talos biting it gave us a better storm god? I would say yes.
Chauntea should be elevated somehow. MS is right, I always thought of her as a farm goddess. That is lame. She should have a some more depth added to her. I like the Earthmother alot, even now that she is going to be an Arch-Fey (BRJ said so).
Plus Sune, Lloth, Auril. I know you said a bunch of others but I thought they were kinda important powerful female players in the Realms. Auril is now the goddess of Storms so that is a pretty big deal. Maybe Talos biting it gave us a better storm god? I would say yes.
Not to mention Auril is one of few Gods beyond the FRCG that has actually anything even written on her in 4E (she's described in a Dragon article).
Funny really. My wife is firmly convinced of pretty much the same idea, that female influence within the Realms as a whole was removed in favor of a more... masculine approach to things, to put it politely. Not really sure I agree with her completely, but there is a definite scent of **** in the ink that I'm detecting. I doubt it was intentional, so much as the result of it being mostly men who worked on it, but she's not really buying it.
I agree, but I'd add that it's not male gods generally that are left... it's that angry male gods are the ones that are left. Sure, there's still Oghma, but he's basically passion-less, and there's Amaunator... but we know next to nothing of him really.
Angry male gods, and angry female gods, plus a lot of high level evil NPCs, it really is the case that the "good" and the nurturing female and male deities received a complete fail. And ultimately, something that's so incredibly one-sided is totally uninteresting.
This point doesn't even make any sense, she gets as much attention really as anyone else manages to in the books (And is still a greater goddess last I looked). This is just completely baseless.
-The quote comes from...either Chris Perkins, in his infamous "Ten Points" post, or from that preview book Worlds and Monsters. Either way, the long and the short of it said, basically, that deities that aren't/weren't especially relevant for adventurers (like deities of agriculture) were extraneous, and were going to be phased out in some fashion).
I agree, but I'd add that it's not male gods generally that are left... it's that angry male gods are the ones that are left. Sure, there's still Oghma, but he's basically passion-less, and there's Amaunator... but we know next to nothing of him really.
Angry male gods, and angry female gods, plus a lot of high level evil NPCs, it really is the case that the "good" and the nurturing female and male deities received a complete fail. And ultimately, something that's so incredibly one-sided is totally uninteresting.
Amaunator is angry too. Read the old 2e Lore on A'tar, and the history of Amaunator in old Netheril. He was a harsh god. He was an unforgiving god. He was a Lawful Neutral god. And he wasn't particularly nice to anyone who didn't worship him, either.
-Her portfolios are 'Agriculture', 'Crops', 'Farmers', 'Gardeners', and 'Summer'. I'd, personally, like to see most of that removed, and replaced with the blanket 'Life'. It'd work better now that Lathander isn't around as Lathander, either. Make her in charge of life, period, make her relatively unresponsive to divine politics, with her primarily being interested in life and all that entails, and call it a day.
I agree on this. Even those Portfolios are realistic to have in a setting they are not very exciting.
-Her portfolios are 'Agriculture', 'Crops', 'Farmers', 'Gardeners', and 'Summer'. I'd, personally, like to see most of that removed, and replaced with the blanket 'Life'. It'd work better now that Lathander isn't around as Lathander, either. Make her in charge of life, period, make her relatively unresponsive to divine politics, with her primarily being interested in life and all that entails, and call it a day.
I like it.
I've been wanting to see a god of life for a while, and I think that it would make Chauntea a much more appealing deity. I always sort of liked her, but didn't really want to play one of her worshippers. Making her the goddess of life would give me a reason to play a follower of Chauntea.
Metagame-speaking, a goddess of agriculture isn't much of a use for PCs, who are, frankly, intruments of violence, no matter their playstyle (especially since I'm a DM who speciallizes in combat). The present Chauntea is basically just backdrop, an interesting but still mostly irrelevant part of the Campaign Setting. Escalate her position to an Earthmother-type, and then she has tremendous import, especially for epic games.
On the whole topic of maleness of 4e FR, I'm of the opinion that the current atmosphere is a result of the points-of-light theory in action. In such a dark world, nourishment and growing wouldn't have much of a place, with so much 'wolves' threatning to rip the flowerbed apart. I was really disgusted with the entire theory - if I needed to play such a game I would choose a FR location that fit the discription. The current situation looks like the whole f****** continent turned into 3.5e Lands of Intrigue. The grim curtain covering FR downplayed all the more constructive and cultural aspects of the Realms, and destroyed much of established order - what's left is a void of authority permeating the world, filled with cutthroat factions and mini-powers struggling just to survive.
I don't need a Dark Age of Aber-Toril to make my games interesting.
But, on retrospect, the setting now has much more room for characters to improve - with so much in disorder and neglect, PC heroes don't have to be too creative to achieve something to be proud of. Again, metagame-speaking, the 4e environment is more hero-friendly. Giants arise from troublesome times.
The final question I want to ask, as of right now, is where the realms are going. What generally follows destruction is rebirth, or a rennaisance. Not only are those paths general case, but they are also right: Destruction followed by stagnation is simply the end. I really would like to follow 'canon' direction as much as possible; even though conclusions of previous games will most likely contradict new official material, I would follow the new material and not previous games. I believe this gives my players a more neutral ground to play. But if canon FR evolves into something I deem irreparable, then I will not look back and go fullblown homebrew. Being businessmen, I don't think the WotC staff are that stupid, but as of right now I am obliged to fear that particular disaster. Well, they made THIS situation; what's to say they won't do something worse.
PS: In case you're wondering, yes, I don't like how 4e FR are going. One of my players do like the changes. One other doesn't like homebrew. And out of respect for game designers and my players, I will play 4e when I'm discharged.
PSS: The most powerful reason for me to dislike 4e FR is what happened to the Sword Coast, Chessenta, and Thay. Especially Thay. 4e Thay is lame.
Metagame-speaking, a goddess of agriculture isn't much of a use for PCs, who are, frankly, intruments of violence, no matter their playstyle (especially since I'm a DM who speciallizes in combat). The present Chauntea is basically just backdrop, an interesting but still mostly irrelevant part of the Campaign Setting. Escalate her position to an Earthmother-type, and then she has tremendous import, especially for epic games.
-That doesn't change the fact that there should be such a deity. I'd, personally, rather see Chauntea divorced from that role, however.
I don't need a Dark Age of Aber-Toril to make my games interesting.
That's not really what they've provided. At least from a reading of Swordmage, the cultural level has actually advanced to an early Enlightenment analogue. In that book, the only presentation of religion is of a cloistered community dedicated to Amaunator, and the society beyond shows signs of reliance on temporal authorities rather than gods or wizards - as one would expect after a century of neither being particularly reliable. Magic and its wielders are less favorably regarded (comparable to the Enlightenment era, in which superstition and reason were frequently at war for the hearts and minds of the people). Travel appears no less common (at least in areas with good seaway access) and any isolation between communities seems to be self-imposed rather than being the result of necessity. The descriptions of law, technology, common entertainment, and even relationships are more consistent with the age of Voltaire than they are with earlier eras. These 'points of light' are isolated not by encroaching wilderness or lawlessness (as would be the case with a true Dark Age) but by antagonistic powers on either side: the 'wolves' are likely to be agents of another government far more often than marauding monsters (or at least, the marauding monsters are likely to be influenced by another government - c.f. the orcs in Swordmage who are being manipulated by Vaasa, and the situation with the lich which is also being orchestrated in part by a foreign power). There's an increase in nationalism, which in real life was the vehicle that overthrew the feudal system. Even the places that endured total devastation (such as Halruaa) have rallied quite well and have established a national presence in spite of no longer having a physical nation to which they have a claim. The feudal pattern hasn't been entirely discarded yet (and they're definitely not ready yet for the intricate web of alliances and ententes that characterized the 16th through 20th centuries in real history) but the signs are definitely there.
I'm hoping this trend continues in future books - it would be a terrible shame to have Richard Baker tantalize us with such clear signs of development and then for other writers to revert to the old late Medieval/early Renaissance mode.
I've diverted slightly from the feminist point here, so I'll just address it: the gender divisions of the deities aren't as important in an Enlightenment-analogous society because the deities themselves are less relevant to daily life (historically, even the word 'god' became somewhat unfashionable in certain circles). There isn't any corresponding shift in the gender balance of the actual people in prominent positions. In Swordmage, the head of the Amaunator convent is a woman, as is the head of the city guard (the latter still retaining most of her feminine qualities, unlike a certain fallen paladin from Neverwinter I could name). The only deity who remains supremely pertinent is, has been mentioned, Shar. Now, of course, I don't have a lot to base this theory on, and it may well be that future stories will involve the gods to as much of an extent as has been seen before... which I would find really disappointing, as it would be a sign of cultural backsliding which I'm keen not to see.
However, if anything, D&D has always been somewhat gender biased towards strong female characters (if for no other reason that it gives male artists an excuse to create ever skimpier armor for cover art), and so far I've seen little if anything to support any conclusion that this setting has become more masculine.
But, on retrospect, the setting now has much more room for characters to improve - with so much in disorder and neglect, PC heroes don't have to be too creative to achieve something to be proud of. Again, metagame-speaking, the 4e environment is more hero-friendly. Giants arise from troublesome times.
While I agree with the conclusion, I don't necessarily agree with the reasoning that leads to it. Most stable communities have had between 50 and 90 years to recover from the disorder (and some have scarcely been affected at all) and should by now have established a comfort zone and started reaching out to expand their influence. Eventually they start pushing on other groups that are attempting to do the same, and in such situations, conflict is likely to occur. Heroes arise in these hot spots between stable zones. The only places I can think of off the top of my head that are currently actively internally unstable are Luskan and Calimshan (and I suppose Akanul, but that's a feature of geography more than society).
There isn't any corresponding shift in the gender balance of the actual people in prominent positions. In Swordmage, the head of the Amaunator convent is a woman, as is the head of the city guard (the latter still retaining most of her feminine qualities, unlike a certain fallen paladin from Neverwinter I could name).
So you are comparing the presence of the leader of a single convent and one city guard head to the fact that the Rulers of the city itself are male and that the countries/city states of Cormyr (Female to Male) and Silverymoon (Female to Male) and Aglarond (Female to Neutral, the Simbarch Council) have seen a shift. The Queen of the Elves is gone, replaced by a more fragmentary approach to the rulership through the different geopgraphical locations. Unless you were making a case that Coronal Ilsevele Miritar is the new de facto Ruler of the Elven peoples.
-The quote comes from...either Chris Perkins, in his infamous "Ten Points" post, or from that preview book Worlds and Monsters. Either way, the long and the short of it said, basically, that deities that aren't/weren't especially relevant for adventurers (like deities of agriculture) were extraneous, and were going to be phased out in some fashion).
I think that was more of a reference to the "core" pantheon. Chauntea's still there, so that didn't really have any bearing on the Realms.
and that the countries/city states of Cormyr (Female to Male)
That's not evidence of a misogynist agenda. That's story progression. We already knew from 3E products that the rulership of Cormyr would go from female to male. Alusair was just a regent until Azoun V could take power. Sure, they could've made Azoun V's child female, but I doubt they didn't do so because of sexism.
and Silverymoon (Female to Male) and Aglarond (Female to Neutral, the Simbarch Council) have seen a shift
That has nothing to do with gender and everything to do with excising powerful NPC's (who don't sell millions of books, at least). If they'd been "The Seven Brothers", they likely would've similarly gotten the axe. Even Elminster got taken to the woodshed as a result of the 4E transition. It wasn't because of sexism.
What you're describing is a change, not a shift. For it to be representative of a shift there has to be a systematic transfer which has measurable lasting repercussions. I don't see the Realms as having become any less hospitable toward women or to seriously discount the possibility of female rulers. Since there was nothing in previous material to suggest that queens were the norm for most places (only that there just happened to be more of them at that time) you can't argue that a decrease in their numbers represents active antifeminism. Casual sexism, perhaps (and that's a qualified perhaps), but that's a character flaw, not an agenda.
And I mentioned the priestess because she was the female representative of a male deity, indicating that the gender of the god doesn't really matter as much as how its earthly representatives present it.
That's not evidence of a misogynist agenda. That's story progression. We already knew from 3E products that the rulership of Cormyr would go from female to male. It wasn't because of sexism.
Then it is good that I didn't mention sexism, misogynism or agendas isn't it? See below for the rest.
Since there was nothing in previous material to suggest that queens were the norm for most places (only that there just happened to be more of them at that time) you can't argue that a decrease in their numbers represents active antifeminism. Casual sexism, perhaps (and that's a qualified perhaps), but that's a character flaw, not an agenda.
I didn't mention an agenda, I didn't mention antifeminism, I didn't even mention casual sexism.
What I did do was query a generalised assertion that "There isn't any corresponding shift in the gender balance of the actual people in prominent positions" on the basis of two rather minor examples in a single novel. Not least when compared to the three examples I gave of the opposite case being true on a somewhat grander scale. Also the use of "gender balance" raised another query in that it suggests a comparative measure that I, for one, have not calculated. I would be interested in the pre vs post spellplague results if you have. On that basis I invite you both, therefore, to respond to my post as written. Preferably without accusing me of "tilting at windmills" if you please.
As to the Gender issue, my wife is very much convinced that Shar being female and the BBEG of the whole setting is an indication of an axe to grind against someone's ex, be it girlfriend or wife, and points towards illustrating that women will be the downfall of perfectly good men, and that its up to them to rebuild everything those damned females mess up. Like I said, she can be a bit extreme in her views, but I can see her point, even if I don't really agree with it.
Now I'm worried. Next thing we know, 7th edition will be focused on modernized Faerun.
-Don't worry. For about 32,000 years Faerûn's technological level has stayed more or less as it is, though out all of the trials and tribulations of everything. Don't expect anything to change.
Unless you were making a case that Coronal Ilsevele Miritar is the new de facto Ruler of the Elven peoples.
-No she certainly is not. Queen Amlauril was the legal sovereign of Evermeet, and the spiritual leader to most (it not all) Elves. Ilsevele Miritar is the legal soverign of Myth Drannor, but she has yet to take to take the secondary role (or primary? You decide.) that Queen Amlauril filled.
I didn't mention an agenda, I didn't mention antifeminism, I didn't even mention casual sexism.
Apologies, then. One assumes a challenge to evidence is meant to imply adherence to a contrary position.
Yes, my basis for comparison is extremely limited, but so is the basis for counterexample. And since the ones I'm drawing on are fully characterized as opposed to just being names on a list, they represent a better chance of detecting trends than just weighing X and Y chromosomes in the balance. Statistics can only suggest trends, while concrete examples can confirm or deny what the statistics suggest. When additional material is forthcoming, I may revise my assessment, but for now I maintain the assertion that the raw numbers of male to female gods and NPCs is NOT indicative of any sort of trend whatsoever.
Apologies, then. One assumes a challenge to evidence is meant to imply adherence to a contrary position.
Ah, well it is this assumption which was in error. I do not hold a contrary position. In fact I am undecided on this matter, I was reading this discussion on the basis that it might help me decide one way or the other. Your point jumped out of me because it was a broad point made, as you say using an "extremely limited" basis. I am a physicst by trade and if I had tried that in my "other life", I would have been eaten for breakfast.
So it isn't that I disagree with your argument, I just didn't think that in its current form it would persuade me and so sought clarification to see if it could be improved.
For the sake of interest, have you tackled any of the other 4E novels? I have not, although I have read Swordmage. I would be interested to see what other examples for this discussion could be drawn from the pages of others.
I will admit a minor conflict of interest here though, most of the female characters that were deposed or disposed of during the time jump were my favourite NPCs in the setting. Certainly to read about. (Fee for the win! :D)
-No she certainly is not. Queen Amlauril was the legal sovereign of Evermeet, and the spiritual leader to most (it not all) Elves.
I for one am hoping that we will see Amlaruil again, forging back from Faerie (The Feywild) to take her place as the spiritual heart of the Elven peoples of Faerun. We are a little too thin on the ground, as far as good NPCs go, for my liking.
Of course I will add a post-script to that; This is my opinion based on my perception that we seem to have lost more "good" characters than "evil" (most likely, in my view, because "evil" characters can seem to more easily be antagonists whereas "good" characters get accused of overshadowing) in a primarily narrative sense.
I for one am hoping that we will see Amlaruil again, forging back from Faerie (The Feywild) to take her place as the spiritual heart of the Elven peoples of Faerun. We are a little too thin on the ground, as far as good NPCs go, for my liking.
Amlaruil was a character I liked until she came back from the dead the first time. While I disapprove of not knowing how she died the second time, I have come to accept it as an admission of error in her first return. I would much rather see characters that were left dangling get filled out.
For the sake of interest, have you tackled any of the other 4E novels? I have not, although I have read Swordmage. I would be interested to see what other examples for this discussion could be drawn from the pages of others.
Thus far, no - I've been looking for Plague of Spells for weeks now, but my local stores don't stock it.
I'd doubt to see much to that effect, however. Anyone who wants to do a dissertation on gender roles in literature should most definitely not look to D&D novels for examples, as by and large they don't exist.
What is it you want to know, Iluvrien?
I challenge your sig, Doctor Badwolf.
That's actually bad GMing.
The correct statement should not be "Yes."
The correct statement, as far as the GM is concerned, should be neither "Yes" nor "No." It should be "You can TRY."
You don't tell them whether or not they're going to succeed or fail. You just tell them they can try it. If the action is REALLY stupid, you say "Are you sure?" That's all. Then you let them take their lumps.
actually, that's the point. many DMs take the default position of, "If it isn't specifically in the rules, you can't do it." The sig is about saying, "Yeah, sure, you can try that." and figuring out how to make it a possibility for the players. saying yes isn't about letting the players do whatever they please and succeed at it, it's about saying yes to the unusual, inventive, unique and sometimes plain odd things a player wants to have his/her character attempt.
also, "are you sure?" isn't always the entire appropriate response. you should be taking into account how smart the character is, how wise, in 4e you can use passive insight for instance. the fact that the player is dumb, doesn't mean that the character has to be a dumbass. i usually just go with a wisdom or int check(depending on the situation and whether it's a matter of common sense or strategy, for example.) i also usually have them roll the die so that it ends behind my screen, so if its a really bad failure i can straight faced tell them it seems like a great idea. the idea is to allow imagination, rather than rules, to rule. rules are a good thing, but imagination, creativity, these are far more important.
If you don't smack them hard when they try something they can't do, then they won't LEARN.
Learning comes from falling down. If you get everything right, you don't actually learn anything. It's picking yourself up when learning comes in. I refuse to take the intelligence of the player into account. Everyone learns at their own pace. Some people die more than others. That's fine with me. And it should be fine for you, too. Rewarding actions which are clearly not the way to handle a situation because the player isn't as smart as the player to his left is a malapropism of permissiveness.
Because the player on the left IS smarter, he will NOTICE what you did, and chances are, he will NOT reward you for your decision. In fact, he will probably wait until after the session, and challenge you as a GM away from the others about the decision you made.
Fairness means being fair. Not playing favorites. And playing favorites to the lowest common denominator is an outright betrayal of everything that people should hold dear about roleplaying games. We used to play these games as kids because we WERE intelligent and not really cut out for football. But playing to the dumbest tool in the shed on purpose? That's just criminal.
I completely disagree with you. You're not perceiving the difference inherent in the strategy.
If you don't smack them hard when they try something they can't do, then they won't LEARN.
Learning comes from falling down. If you get everything right, you don't actually learn anything. It's picking yourself up when learning comes in. I refuse to take the intelligence of the player into account. Everyone learns at their own pace. Some people die more than others. That's fine with me. And it should be fine for you, too. Rewarding actions which are clearly not the way to handle a situation because the player isn't as smart as the player to his left is a malapropism of permissiveness.
Where did I say anything about not smacking them? I allow them to try things. that's it.
Thing is, i don't just allow my players to benefit from roleplaying the character they've built, i force them to play their character, even when doing so is going to end badly. When they start to do something out of character, i remind them of how their character has acted thus far, and ask them if they want their character to act in that manner, or if they just momentarily forgot who and what their character is, and if their character is an idiot, well, they better hope one of the other pcs is the kinda guy who has common sense and watches out for those who don't. but i'm not going to automatically punish the players for thinking outside the rules. no, you can't do things that are physically impossible, and if you suggest it, im going to remind you that the laws of the universe don't allow it to happen, and if you try anyway, sucks for you. however, if its just something that the rules don't cover, but that might be a bad idea RIGHT NOW, the character has the right to use his or her brain. not taking the intelligence of the character(which is what i suggested, not the player, was that a typo by they way?) into account is gyping the player on a benefit from the character he has built, it's not denying him some extra advantage.
also, where did i say anything about rewarding players for doing things that clearly aren't the way to handle a situation? where did i say that i allow players to get everything right? if a smart player is playing an idiot, i expect him to play an idiot. period. if he thinks of something that isn't obvious, then i make him roll an int check and he is left hoping he rolls very high, and even then his character may not think of everything he did. it's a double-edged sword. i don't reward players for doing stupid things, i reward them for thinking outside the box and finding intelligent ways around a challenge. if they are going to be under seige and a player has a character who can reasonably be believed to be capable of coming up with a good strategy if have them roll an insight check(unless i've houseruled a tactics skill into the game or am running saga, in which case they roll tactics if they're trained) and how high the check is determines if i give them any insights into probable enemy tactics and important things to remember about their situation, and how much time i give them to come up with a strategy. if they come up with something really good, that doesn't break the rules, that makes sense, and they pull it off, i reward them. they deserve it. just like if the guy with an 8 int and a huge axe saves everyone's buts by charging into the fray, knowing he may not make it back out, he will be rewarded for the heroism, if he lives.
Because the player on the left IS smarter, he will NOTICE what you did, and chances are, he will NOT reward you for your decision. In fact, he will probably wait until after the session, and challenge you as a GM away from the others about the decision you made.
Fairness means being fair. Not playing favorites. And playing favorites to the lowest common denominator is an outright betrayal of everything that people should hold dear about roleplaying games. We used to play these games as kids because we WERE intelligent and not really cut out for football. But playing to the dumbest tool in the shed on purpose? That's just criminal.
because the player on the left is smarter, he'll probably be thinking of things himself, and will appreciate the opportunity to use his intelligence. my players are not afraid to tell me when i'm doing something they disagree with, yet they always thank me when i allow them to try things that aren't covered by the rules as written, even the few times a character has died because of it, we all enjoyed the inventive solution to the challenge, or cool thing the character did before dying.
again, i don't say yes to every thing they want to do, i don't let them make impossible things work because they want them to. I do, however, listen when they want to do something that ISN'T COVERED BY THE RULES. i then, if i determine that what they want to do is possible in the setting, work with them on how to best handle the attempt, decide what i want the chance of success for an average person to be, decide if i want to amp it up due to situational factors or just to make more of a challenge for the players, and then let the dice sort the rest out. i NEVER play favorites, and i have been accused by players and friends of having far too little respect or patience for the lowest common denominator.
Now, I have done the best I can to respond to you without taking anything personal, but there are a few things that need to be said.
First, do not put words in my mouth. far too much of what you said was in response to your own twisted version of what you think i meant by what i said, my words do not say what you seem to think i said.
secondly, do not tell me what should be fine for me.when did i say anything about not letting players get themselves killed? if they want to do something dumb, ok. they have a right to say no to the int/wis checks to determine whether its a bad idea, and they have a right to ignore them if they do roll. if they go that way, and it bites them in the ass, oh well. i expect them to play their character, not themselves, and just like their character might be dumber than them, their character might in some situations be smarter than them. i mean, i've got a character in a friend's star wars campaign with a 24 int. you telling me that character can't think of things i never would? don't be absurd. he's literally a genius, so far as i know, I am not.
and at what point, exactly, did i even suggest that i reward actions which are clearly not the way to handle the situation? what i did say was
"saying yes isn't about letting the players do whatever they please and succeed at it, it's about saying yes to the unusual, inventive, unique and sometimes plain odd things a player wants to have his/her character attempt."
ATTEMPT. find a dictionary. using the word attempt means that there is a chance of failure or success. how likely either is depends on what is being attempted, and the whole point of the saying yes is a skill arguement is to allow those attempts, even ones that have little to no chance of success. people attempt impossible things, and then they have to deal with thier failure. people also know certain basic things about thier world and how it works, which is where common sense rolls come in, and intelligent people have the abillity to reason out possible outcomes of certain actions, which is where the int rolls come in. they simulate the potential differences between player and character, as well as those things which a native of a world knows on a much more personal, automatic level than someone pretending to be from that world a few hours a week. it's why we have knowledge checks, characters know things players don't. that's part of the nature of the game. i would no more deny that than i would ignore metagaming to the characters benefit. player and character knowledge are separate, sometimes overlapping things.
next time you respond to my post, read it. Don't just jump to conclusions. I have no patience for those who can't be bothered to actively read something and respond according to what is there, rather than making assumptions.
edit:
to the thread: Sorry for letting myself get dragged into a thread jacking arguement.
mrsatran: lets keep the thread jacking to a minumum, shall we? our arguement has literally nothing to do with the topic at hand
What is it you want to know, Iluvrien?
Well, not to put too fine a point on it, I would like specific details of the administrato-political structures extant in the New Realms. In this case:
What are the Ruling groups?
Where do they Rule or Administer?
Who the blooming heck are they?
That kind of thing. I was wondering whether it could be a Realmslore board project. Put up the list of currently available 4E materials in a maintained 2nd post in the thread then people could choose ones they have or will soon have (be it Sourcebook, Novel or D&Di Article) and then post the summary to the thread when they are done. The top post could then become the summary of those summaries. A quick overview of "Who (or What) is in Power Where In The Realms!"
It could be a quick guide for DMs who want inspiration without having to novel/article dredge... or could ignore at will. It might give a basis for "Develop the missing in " threads in RtR and would be jolly interesting for lore-fiends.
What do you think?
Well, not to put too fine a point on it, I would like specific details of the administrato-political structures extant in the New Realms. In this case:
What are the Ruling groups?
Where do they Rule or Administer?
Who the blooming heck are they?
That kind of thing. I was wondering whether it could be a Realmslore board project. Put up the list of currently available 4E materials in a maintained 2nd post in the thread then people could choose ones they have or will soon have (be it Sourcebook, Novel or D&Di Article) and then post the summary to the thread when they are done. The top post could then become the summary of those summaries. A quick overview of "Who (or What) is in Power Where In The Realms!"
It could be a quick guide for DMs who want inspiration without having to novel/article dredge... or could ignore at will. It might give a basis for "Develop the missing in " threads in RtR and would be jolly interesting for lore-fiends.
What do you think?
I think that would be a fine idea... you plan to start it, and I'll do what I can to help you.
I think that would be a fine idea... you plan to start it, and I'll do what I can to help you.
Thanks for the offer of support, I'll give it some thought (summary format, info to look for etc) and then will put it up after that.
Well I personally get that feeling because of the loss of (at least the greater part of) the Seven as well as Alusair, Filfaeril, Caladnei and Amlaruil, some of the most powerful (physically, magically and politically) and certainly some of the most well known female NPCs... but that is just me.
I don't think it's just you. A number of people, myself included, were pretty saddened at how in the recent article about Cormyr, all but one of the influential individuals mentioned (Lady Eleanor) were male. That's a pretty different picture from Cormyr 1374 DR, to be sure.*
Granted, the article wasn't meant to tell us everything, but we can only go by what's in there.
Chauntea should be elevated somehow. MS is right, I always thought of her as a farm goddess. That is lame.
Well, it's not lame when you consider that it's agriculture that keeps the majority of the people of Faerun, including most adventurers at least some of the time (and us, for that matter) well fed.
Also, as a budding gardener, I find plant cultivation to be fascinating. In such a dark world, nourishment and growing wouldn't have much of a place, with so much 'wolves' threatning to rip the flowerbed apart.
Eh, I couldn't disagree more. Without nourishment and growing, you can neither strengthen/defend the flowerbed nor replace what does get destroyed.
...society beyond shows signs of reliance on temporal authorities rather than gods or wizards...
Did you forget about all the temporal authorities mentioned in pre-Spellplague FR sourcebooks, or did you just never notice them? Last I checked, neither theocracies nor magocracies were the norm in 14th century Faerun.
Actually, I never much saw any evidence of Faerun being that feudal, at least not on a social level. Not really even on a political level either, beyond using familiar names for leadership tiers.
In my informed opinion, you are correct. Most of the pre-Spellplague Realms were not "feudal."
Considering the social freedoms most people seemed to enjoy, I'd say it considerably surpassed the Enlightenment era socially pre-Spellplague.
Seconded.
*Disclaimer: I am not trying to insinuate a "sexist agenda" on anyone's part.
Did you forget about all the temporal authorities mentioned in pre-Spellplague FR sourcebooks, or did you just never notice them? Last I checked, neither theocracies nor magocracies were the norm in 14th century Faerun.
Politics need not be dominated by gods or mages for infrastructural development to be curtailed by the abundance of such - when something can be easily done by magic, there is little to no incentive to find a way to do it with technology (even if the non-magical form would be cheaper and more accessible in the long run - because those with the means to effect change don't want/need it, those who don't have the means end up doing without). Once the reliability of said resources comes into question, however, change is likely to progress much more quickly.
Most of the pre-Spellplague Realms were not "feudal."
Perhaps not, but they were an idealized form of 14th century Italy crossed with 15th century England and 16th century Germany, with the occasional sprinkling of pre-Conquest Gaul. Now they've added in a big dollop of 16th-18th century France and Holland, with the occasional sprinkling of 19th-century China.
I've never run into Elminster, Drizzte, the silverymoon lady, or any other epic npc in an FR campaign. Ever. Not once. Also of note, I've only ever run into a handful of gods, in any campaigns, and my dealings with gods have almost always been with one i worshiped, one a party member worshiped or an enemy of an above mention power.
We hardly tripped over any of these beings, hell if i hadn't read the books i'd hardly remember the epic npcs existed. I mean, if you don't like the huge amount of details in the setting, why not just not play in it or just use it as a basic idea for a setting? see a cool adventure you want to run that takes place outside waterdeep? easy, rename it Silverfel or something and go go go. or just don't bother with any other the minute details. it's seriously absurdly easy. so far as i can tell there was no legit reason to get rid of so much.
since very little of the land was actually claimed by anyone, a situation the powers of the European continent wouldn't have abided for longer than a few years, if that long.
In Europe between the 14th and 17th centuries there was actually a great deal of land that was claimed in theory, but in practice that claim was unenforceable - sections of Germany were minor principalities in name but lawless in practice, for instance. And of course, you have Russia, which laid claim over a wide area but which could not really enforce that claim in the larger areas of wilderness - of course, since hardly anyone else wanted it it didn't really matter. However, considering that Faerun is a considerably larger land mass than Europe, with a lower population, it's not surprising that the isolated powers are more circumspect in their territorial claims - declare for more territory than you have the manpower to protect and you are obligated to defend against encroachment where there is little to no benefit in keeping the territory (a situation that was ruinous to Han dynasty China, which bankrupted itself defending remote outlying provinces against incursions by barbarians that had no chance whatsoever of threatening the core of the empire).
Regardless, however, the political reality (being as it is and will always be covered by a medieval veneer) is less interesting than the social reality, that being the chief factor capable of change in a setting like this. The dominant trend I see is the expansion of nationalistic tendencies, specifically the sort that began with the decline of feudalism and the consolidation of power under a unified state and ultimately led to the two world wars in real history. Nation-building begins by looking inward, hammering out the essential nature of the nation before turning outward to expand its influence either through trade or conquest. The groundwork is already laid in the 14th century, apparent in, for instance, The Pirate King (when the Hosttower sends emissaries to the Silver Marches in an attempt to prevent them from getting involved in the immanent civil war) and blossoms in the 15th (for instance, the tension between Netheril and Cormyr has resulted in a full-blown nationalist trend in Cormyr of the worst kind, complete with a paranoid institution of internment for those suspected of Sharran sympathies). You also have other interesting trends such as the 'nation-in-exile' (I'm thinking of Halruaa specifically, but there are others) which maintains cohesion in spite of the lack of a unifying geography, and the 'hegemonic alliance' whereby one nation enters into agreements with another and then uses those agreements to force them to act in the former nation's interests (c.f. what Vaasa is trying to do to the greater Moonsea region in Swordmage).
All of these political developments can only come about in an atmosphere of national cultural identity, which is something I have not seen a lot of in the Realms before but which now I'm seeing everywhere (and while I will admit that my exposure is somewhat limited, the fact that I don't see a lot of evidence of this attitude in, for instance, Salvatore's prior works but now they're fairly dripping with it is far more suggestive of a directed trend than an incidence here and there from disparate sources). I've attempted to play it up in my current character (who, for instance, was constantly regarding her shadar-kai party mate with suspicion, frequently makes racist comments about the Shadovar, and who at one point during the adventure - we used the Keep on the Shadowfell adaptation - casually referred to Kalarel's cultists as 'food for Wheloon'), and some of the other players are starting to get into the spirit of the thing as well.
Other cultural developments are tied to this sense of identity - nations start developing distinctive art forms, or unique takes on common art forms. Their technological and economic development is spurred partly by the desire to appear distinct from their neighbors and partly by brinkmanship. In a magical society, the approach to magic would show a similar branching (which you see to a certain extent in Swordmage - there's a clear contrast made between the 'flavor' of Myth Drannor's magic and Vaasa's). The end result is, a more distinctive patchwork of cultures. Hence, you can see why I would prefer the trend continue - one of the problems I've always had getting into the Realms was that one's choice of origin ultimately didn't have that much impact on the game, unless you were pulling a Drizzt (in the Cormyr/Shadowdale/Anauroch arc, I did this to an extent, deciding to play a Shou monk and constantly reminding the GM that Common was not my first language and that my clothing and behavior should incite stares from the people I encountered), and thus there was very little incentive to brave the pertinent books with and their 8-point font in order to discover more. Now, at least to me, background matters. Part of the change I believe is system-related (the background benefits no longer costing a feat slot while simultaneously being somewhat worth having), and part of it is the clear emphasis placed on cultural identity by the designers (at least, that's the impression I've gotten from Swordmage, and I'd assume that at least part of the purpose of that book is to illustrate forward trends).
Also it makes a bloody good setup for a large-scale war campaign... simmering tension erupting to a boil between two nations, drawing in their neighbors and having repercussions that are felt across the continent. Whether or not the metaplot moves in that direction (and I suspect it won't), I'm definitely going to have to go that way for a game whenever I end up getting to run.
Loosely based, at best, but more of a modern society given an archaic backdrop more than anything else, at least as far as I can tell.
This is accurate, unfortunately, and is yet another of the problems I had with the earlier Realms - the fact that it was attempting to provide the same level of social freedom that exists in modern democratic society while simultaneously presenting a stagnant medieval milieu, and then providing large swathes of encroaching wilderness filled with wandering monsters. With neither a strong feudal basis or one of the strong government systems that resulted from nationalism, these various settlements should realistically have been prey for whatever marauders happened to be local, and travel between communities should have been rare to nonexistent. Essentially, the only thing protecting them from the ever-present threat of conquest and/or consumption are a steady stream of adventurers - which leads into the problem of there being too bloody many of same and devaluing the accomplishments of any one thereof. Add to this the fact that these societies had basically not changed at all for centuries, if not millennia, and my willingness to suspend my disbelief was stretched almost to breaking point. While what we have now is not really that much more realistic, it is at least a step in the right direction as far as what I'm able to believe is concerned, and it better helps me connect with it as a result.
honestly, I still just don't see why getting rid of the gods/goddesses and epic npcs was in any way needed.
One rationale seems pretty pertinent - space in the books is at a premium. Given that the previous edition required 223 pages of 8 point font to do little more than list its major gods (compared with the equivalent book for Eberron, which was smaller and had bigger text, and not only extensively detailed the major faiths but provided fairly complex background information about them as well as different philosophical viewpoints on each one), it's fairly easy to see why they might have considered it necessary to prune the deific family tree a bit.
As for epic NPCs, it's like that 'The Simpsons did it already' South Park episode. Nobody likes feeling overshadowed by an unapproachable legacy, and most campaigns will not last long enough for characters to attain epic levels themselves and thus surpass the former movers and shakers.
Seriously, with the rise of monotheism in Europe, you got a very large mindset of US and THEM when it came to foreigners, even if they followed the same religion, the atmosphere of intolerance that was created led to a society that formed in a fairly specific sort of way. The Church was actively doing its best to engage in social engineering, and while that backfired on them eventually, it did work fairly well for the most part, even if in unforseen ways.
You just don't see stuff like that happening in Faerun, so personally, I have little to no problem accepting the idea of social freedom being prevalent, if not the norm, in a place where religious freedom, and by extension freedom of thought, was widespread and ingrained. To me, its just the "set dressing" that's familiar, and all the other rules as we know them have to be mutilated nearly beyond recognition for them to work.
Recently a thread came-up over at Ck about the greater availability of gems and precious metals in the Realms.
My answer: Non-humans!!!!!!!!!
Besides the Dwarves - who are much more efficient and just plain better at finding this kind of stuff - you have a MULTITUDE of races living below ground! That changes everything - who's to say Earth doesn't have head-sized Rubys a few miles below the surface, and we just haven't found them yet?
The SAME answer applies here - large swaths of land are NOT unclaimed - they are claimed by the creatures living therein. 'The North' isn't miles and miles of empty space - it is a monster-infested frontier with just a few 'points-of-Light' where some semblance of civilization can be found.
Stop being a humanocentric BIGOT and start thinking in terms of a FANTASY world. You CAN'T claim the forests - Elves own them! You can't dig deeply into the mountains - Dwarves live there! You can't claim the surface of the Mountains - Dragons live there (and Giants, and just about everything else..) .
As an FR Cartographer, I have made it my business to find every single 'kingdom' (or political entity) in every single area, I can trell you with some certainty that there is NO SUCH THING as un-claimed land in FR!
For instance - take The Shar - Calimshan, Mulhorand, and Unther have all claimed parts, if not all, of the Shar over the years, but have been completely unable to enforce those claims.
You also have Kingdoms like Najara - which is rather large - in the North, that do not get placed on any 'human' maps, as are others like Many Arrows.
Stop thinking like a human and realize this ain't Earth - this is a world with probably a thousand intelligent species all vying for space - there are NO empty areas!
honestly, I still just don't see why getting rid of the gods/goddesses and epic npcs was in any way needed.
They felt that the ones PCs would never pick were 'unintersting' and therefore needed elimination. All it really did was cut-down on a DM's options for NPCs.
But this has been beaten to death - obviously some designers felt more 'comfortable' designing for a simplified world.
to be honest, I think you might be overthinking things a bit
I do that
Seriously, with the rise of monotheism in Europe, you got a very large mindset of US and THEM when it came to foreigners, even if they followed the same religion, the atmosphere of intolerance that was created led to a society that formed in a fairly specific sort of way.
I don't think that's exclusively due to monotheism... a lot of it comes from humans just being human, and religion is often the excuse. The issue isn't so much monotheism as it is the existence of overbearing authorities that seek to define the way of life for the majority of the population - which, fair enough, don't exist in either 14th or 15th century Faerun, so there's less to break away from. Instead, what they have is widespread evil organizations that are bent either on conquest or subversion, so you still get that mentality coming through anyplace that has been dominated (or that is potentially about to be dominated) by those groups.
You just don't see stuff like that happening in Faerun, so personally, I have little to no problem accepting the idea of social freedom being prevalent, if not the norm, in a place where religious freedom, and by extension freedom of thought, was widespread and ingrained.
It's not the mentality that has me scratching my head, it's the physical survival of the people who have it. Social freedom tends to diminish in direct proportion to the amount of external threat - either because the people willingly give it up to gain security against the threat, or because they are coerced to give it up (either by the threat or the person/group that is attempting to defend them from the threat) or they tend to be killed by the threat and so their amount of freedom becomes moot. The only case in which this does not happen is if enough members of the society are willing and able to take on their own defense - which is not the case in most modern societies and only moderately the case in most medieval ones. In a world where wandering monsters are literally a few minutes' to a few hours' walk from the edges of any major settlement, the amount of threat should be rated as 'considerable,' so realistically without some sort of citizen's levy (either voluntary, as is being described as somewhat new in Swordmage, or conscripted by a feudal authority, which doesn't happen because there aren't very many feudal authorities in the Realms) either that threat gets to run rampant or the peoples' only recourse is to mercenaries (or as the case proves more often, adventurers... who just happen to be available when they're needed).
In other words, these 'free' societies - modern with an archaic veneer, as you say - are sustained primarily through the medium of plot convenience. Which is difficult to stomach if the selling point for the setting claims to be its realism and depth. Since the overall emphasis in 4e has shifted somewhat away from the simulationist, however, the fact that this situation is patently unrealistic is less obvious and therefore less problematic.
Stop thinking like a human and realize this ain't Earth - this is a world with probably a thousand intelligent species all vying for space - there are NO empty areas!
I'm sure that somewhere in the big wide world there is some square foot of ground that nobody wants
Bearing in mind that with a few notable exceptions, MOST of these intelligent races are just Star Trek aliens - i.e. basically human with different bits of putty slapped about the face. They have fundamentally similar needs when it comes to basic resources, and while the habitable climes may be somewhat more extensive once you start considering magical adaptation, still there is not a species for every ecological niche. Generally where a group is going to go looking for resources is in a place that some other group has already found them.One rationale seems pretty pertinent - space in the books is at a premium. Given that the previous edition required 223 pages of 8 point font to do little more than list its major gods (compared with the equivalent book for Eberron, which was smaller and had bigger text, and not only extensively detailed the major faiths but provided fairly complex background information about them as well as different philosophical viewpoints on each one), it's fairly easy to see why they might have considered it necessary to prune the deific family tree a bit.
As for epic NPCs, it's like that 'The Simpsons did it already' South Park episode. Nobody likes feeling overshadowed by an unapproachable legacy, and most campaigns will not last long enough for characters to attain epic levels themselves and thus surpass the former movers and shakers.
That just seems weak to me. So Elminster's been to hell and back. Big deal, there are plenty of things he never did, and again you can simply ignore his existence entirely if you want.
My next game will be 4e FR, except the gods aren't dead(although some are missing, which will be part of the campaign story, and Mystra may be dead or die, to be replaced by a new mystra, like she was before.) Cyric tried to kill Mystra, and no one, not even Elminster, is sure if he succeeded, but he did succeed in severing her control of the Weave, resulting in the spellplague. Only reason I haven't started running it yet is i need to get my hands on old FR source books and refresh my memory on the various gods who are no longer around in the 4e sourcebook.
In my experience, players enjoy having more choices, rather than less.
Off topic a bit, how much info is there on which gods are dead, which ones wander to other planes, and which ones turned out to be manifestations of other gods? all the source books say is that there are gods who fit each category.
I've seen nothing to suggest that Shaundakul is dead, so i presume he is either just forgotten or has wandered off or something, but I have a character who i would like to have worship him, so any info on him particularly would be awesome, but I'm curious about all of them.
Politics need not be dominated by gods or mages for infrastructural development to be curtailed by the abundance of such...
I still disagree with what you were trying to imply about the 14th century Realms, though, which is the bottomline. You haven't made a compelling case that the old realms were in "the dark ages." And besides, what great leaps in infrastructural development have occured in the 15th century Realms? If anything, I thought the designers of the new setting wanted the setting to feel less developed (ie. roads fallen into disuse, ghost towns, population centers are few and far in between, and travelling too far outside them unbelievably dangerous). Are you saying that that isn't the case, and in fact that the opposite is true?
Lastly--people in the 4E Realms can use magic, and people in the 4E Realms still believe in gods.
This is accurate, unfortunately, and is yet another of the problems I had with the earlier Realms - the fact that it was attempting to provide the same level of social freedom that exists in modern democratic society while simultaneously presenting a stagnant medieval milieu, and then providing large swathes of encroaching wilderness filled with wandering monsters. With neither a strong feudal basis or one of the strong government systems that resulted from nationalism, these various settlements should realistically have been prey for whatever marauders happened to be local, and travel between communities should have been rare to nonexistent. Essentially, the only thing protecting them from the ever-present threat of conquest and/or consumption are a steady stream of adventurers - which leads into the problem of there being too bloody many of same and devaluing the accomplishments of any one thereof.
Emphasis mine. See what I meant before? You're confusing the old Realms with the new Realms.
The new Realms is all about "making the PCs matter"*, right? If NPCs were keeping things safe, it'd make players of PCs feel small and insignificant, according to some people here.*And don't assume I'm implying that they didn't matter before.
Turn one: "Everyone done rolling up your characters? Good... Szass Tam shows up and kills you all... now roll up new characters."
Next session (an hour later), Turn one: "You guys done again? Good... the Shades show up and kill you all... roll up a new character..."
I think I may have some fun next weekend at my LGS.
I still disagree with what you were trying to imply about the 14th century Realms, though, which is the bottomline. You haven't made a compelling case that the old realms were in "the dark ages."
Because that isn't what I was trying to imply. The social, economic, and political systems of the old Realms are consistent with the middle to late Renaissance. The contention was that the NEW Realms were in the dark ages, which they aren't.
If anything, I thought the designers of the new setting wanted the setting to feel less developed (ie. roads fallen into disuse, ghost towns, population centers are few and far in between, and travelling too far outside them unbelievably dangerous). Are you saying that that isn't the case, and in fact that the opposite is true?
I feel you're getting hung up on one particular definition of the word 'developed' to the exclusion of other definitions. What you've just described there could apply equally well to the Middle Ages, the Old West, or (more appropriate in this case) after the apocalypse. It's entirely possible for a society to be more advanced and yet less developed.
Lastly--people in the 4E Realms can use magic, and people in the 4E Realms still believe in gods.
But for a period of 10-50 years, they couldn't rely on either - which meant that anything that would normally be done by magic had to either be done without, compensated for with mundane methods, or left up to chance. Regardless of which method was preferred, taking away a fixture of the infrastructure must result in correlative development to counteract the deficiency.
Emphasis mine. See what I meant before? You're confusing the old Realms with the new Realms.
And you're confusing two entirely separate points that are addressing different issues and are based on different premises.
But for a period of 10-50 years, they couldn't rely on either - which meant that anything that would normally be done by magic had to either be done without, compensated for with mundane methods, or left up to chance. Regardless of which method was preferred, taking away a fixture of the infrastructure must result in correlative development to counteract the deficiency.
-This isn't necessarily true anymore. Plague of Spells, which takes place during and after the Spellplague mentions some magicians not being able to use magic, but features plenty having no problems. The second and third books of the Haunted Lands trilogy, does the same thing, as well. Suffice to say, the head does not know what the hand is doing, yet again, concerning all of the transitioning.
I was thinking about starting a 4eFR Game.
Turn one: "Everyone done rolling up your characters? Good... Szass Tam shows up and kills you all... now roll up new characters."
Next session (an hour later), Turn one: "You guys done again? Good... the Shades show up and kill you all... roll up a new character..."
I think I may have some fun next weekend at my LGS.
Lol. Ok that's funny, but if anything remotely like this ever happened in a campaign i would severely verbally b****-slap the DM. Twice. i would not, however, blame the setting.
-This isn't necessarily true anymore. Plague of Spells, which takes place during and after the Spellplague mentions some magicians not being able to use magic, but features plenty having no problems. The second and third books of the Haunted Lands trilogy, does the same thing, as well. Suffice to say, the head does not know what the hand is doing, yet again, concerning all of the transitioning.
If magic was going crazy and changing the world in nasty ways, would you rely on it or try to find a way around it?
Honestly, the Realms should have better technology, at least in one to two places. Like a railroad. Portals still don't work right, railroads would still be usefull, and rich folk aren't going to be happy about having to sit in a coach, when they used to be able to zip right on over.
I think I'll work on that basic concept when working out my homebrew version of the 4e realms.
If magic was going crazy and changing the world in nasty ways, would you rely on it or try to find a way around it?
-I'm merely highlighting how the authors/designers featured it in their novels.
Selective Devastation, indeed.
-I'm merely highlighting how the authors/designers featured it in their novels.
Yes, and I'm highlighted the lack of logic, which is my complaint about the changes they've made. In the old FR i felt that between magic, gods, "mortals" who lived for hundreds of years, etc, the setting made sense. There were factors i could beleive leading to social freedoms, other things that made sense leading to it being safe enough to keep those freedoms, the whole thing just worked. Gods protected their people, clerics had real power, were able to help protect a realm, not to mention wizards and such, and it wasn't as if these places were without standing armies. things made sense.
now...bah. i have to homebrew it just to not be annoyed.
I do that
Yes, well stop it, its getting annoying. :P ;) :D
I don't think that's exclusively due to monotheism... a lot of it comes from humans just being human, and religion is often the excuse. The issue isn't so much monotheism as it is the existence of overbearing authorities that seek to define the way of life for the majority of the population - which, fair enough, don't exist in either 14th or 15th century Faerun, so there's less to break away from. Instead, what they have is widespread evil organizations that are bent either on conquest or subversion, so you still get that mentality coming through anyplace that has been dominated (or that is potentially about to be dominated) by those groups.
I'm not sure I'd agree to that point... I'd say that modern society has been so incredibly shaped by monotheistic doctrines that its just about impossible to seperate what comes from the secular (of human nature) and what comes from the religious influence.
One could just as easily say that given their prior history, those in danger of domination might cling to their personal freedoms all the harder, since it would essentially be a surrender in some ways to the threats that loom. Given the existence of churches like Lliira's, Sune's, or Tymora's, I don't think that's really an unreasonable conclusion to come to.
It's not the mentality that has me scratching my head, it's the physical survival of the people who have it. Social freedom tends to diminish in direct proportion to the amount of external threat - either because the people willingly give it up to gain security against the threat, or because they are coerced to give it up (either by the threat or the person/group that is attempting to defend them from the threat) or they tend to be killed by the threat and so their amount of freedom becomes moot. The only case in which this does not happen is if enough members of the society are willing and able to take on their own defense - which is not the case in most modern societies and only moderately the case in most medieval ones. In a world where wandering monsters are literally a few minutes' to a few hours' walk from the edges of any major settlement, the amount of threat should be rated as 'considerable,' so realistically without some sort of citizen's levy (either voluntary, as is being described as somewhat new in Swordmage, or conscripted by a feudal authority, which doesn't happen because there aren't very many feudal authorities in the Realms) either that threat gets to run rampant or the peoples' only recourse is to mercenaries (or as the case proves more often, adventurers... who just happen to be available when they're needed).
In other words, these 'free' societies - modern with an archaic veneer, as you say - are sustained primarily through the medium of plot convenience. Which is difficult to stomach if the selling point for the setting claims to be its realism and depth. Since the overall emphasis in 4e has shifted somewhat away from the simulationist, however, the fact that this situation is patently unrealistic is less obvious and therefore less problematic.
Well, it might make more sense in the context of all those bartenders and innkeeps being relatively high level from 2e's Volo's Guides. Given that, I would say it was a reasonable conclusion to reach that most folks were more than willing (and able) to defend their ways of life quite actively... would go a long way to explain the continued survival of the Dales and the North in general. Again, a very different mindset from Earth analogies, so I don't really accept the comparison as being particularly valid.
I can accept however that you don't see it that way, and want it to be more closely analogous, hence familiar and more easily digestible, to Earthen cultures, but the bulk of the lore we've seen doesn't really support that, at least that I'm aware of. It is, in my opinion, quite realistic within its own context, despite not being all that similar to Earth during a similar technological period.
I'm sure that somewhere in the big wide world there is some square foot of ground that nobody wants
And hence why we see much more active travel and trade than we did in Europe during a superficially similar period. Most folks weren't going to venture more than 25 miles from the place they were born in Europe, and many other places on Earth, and yet in Faerun, we are told that is simply not the case, even among the unexceptional. Says to me there's a very different societal setup at work at the very least. But that's getting repetitive, so...
-This isn't necessarily true anymore. Plague of Spells, which takes place during and after the Spellplague mentions some magicians not being able to use magic, but features plenty having no problems. The second and third books of the Haunted Lands trilogy, does the same thing, as well. Suffice to say, the head does not know what the hand is doing, yet again, concerning all of the transitioning.
... the more I hear about that book, the more I need to read it. Stupid Chapters and their stupid selective selection... *rhubarbrhubarbrhubarbgrumblegrumble*
Well, the game materials make mention of having to puzzle out at least some things, so the point isn't totally invalid...
I'm not sure I'd agree to that point... I'd say that modern society has been so incredibly shaped by monotheistic doctrines that its just about impossible to seperate what comes from the secular (of human nature) and what comes from the religious influence.
My point was that the specific religion and its number of deities shouldn't matter as long as its aims and goals are similar. True, had the classical religion of Rome remained with us instead of being replaced with Christianity, history would have been quite different, but I would quibble that the basic character of society would not necessarily have been. The same political upheavals would have happened to cause the dark ages, the medieval period would have proceeded apace, perhaps the Renaissance would have happened a bit earlier and a bit differently because there would be no need to 'rediscover' the classics. There's a good deal of speculative fiction (and interesting RPG settings) that are predicated on Constantine not converting, which make a very good point about the nature of organized religion independent of actual doctrine.
One could just as easily say that given their prior history, those in danger of domination might cling to their personal freedoms all the harder, since it would essentially be a surrender in some ways to the threats that loom.
One could just as easily say that, but one would not be borne out by the majority of history. In ancient Greece and Rome, in times of trouble the people turned to a tyrant or a dictator to lead them, 'temporarily' ceding absolute control of the state and accepting a cut in personal freedom until the threat was passed. The whole concept of feudalism, which endured for centuries, is based on a voluntary contract whereby the rulers are bound to protect those who serve them. The Communist Revolution lasted only a short time before autocracy took over, and the vaunted proletariat accepted it. Even look to the recent past - the American people as a whole accepted a brutal diminution in personal freedom and privacy in response to terrorism. As one of my favorite Discworld quotations goes: "They think they want good government and justice for all, yet what is it they really crave, deep in their hearts? Only that things go on as normal and tomorrow is pretty much like today."
Given the existence of churches like Lliira's, Sune's, or Tymora's, I don't think that's really an unreasonable conclusion to come to.
Bear in mind that doctrine and practice do not always correspond. The Christian church is based on a doctrine of universal peace and love, and was responsible for several of the worst atrocities in history. Also the religions of the Realms are not exclusive, and so the entire pantheon should be considered when making broad statements about the character that religion brings to daily life.
Well, it might make more sense in the context of all those bartenders and innkeeps being relatively high level from 2e's Volo's Guides. Given that, I would say it was a reasonable conclusion to reach that most folks were more than willing (and able) to defend their ways of life quite actively... would go a long way to explain the continued survival of the Dales and the North in general. Again, a very different mindset from Earth analogies, so I don't really accept the comparison as being particularly valid.
That plays into 'sustained by plot convenience'. The idea that every barkeep in the world is a retired adventurer has a certain romantic appeal, but once again, it's veneer. It doesn't display the signs of a society that has evolved to this point, because it displays a psychology that is quite at odds with everything we have seen of human development. (It also plays merry hell with the economy, since it presumes a higher standard of living for a substantial portion of the population due to the fact that adventurers make and spend a great deal of money... and yet there is plenty of evidence of subsistance living and even penury among those who, by game logic, have all the skills they need to become adventurers themselves). The reason I like what I'm seeing in new Realms thus far is that it does show signs of a logical evolution from that which we have seen.
Yes, and I'm highlighted the lack of logic, which is my complaint about the changes they've made.
-I didn't say there was too much logic to it, either. :P
... the more I hear about that book, the more I need to read it. Stupid Chapters and their stupid selective selection... *rhubarbrhubarbrhubarbgrumblegrumble*
-Unless you want to read the book (A) because it exists, or (B) because it takes place in the 4e Forgotten Realms, I wouldn't bother. I read it for the stories of the characters, having liked Raidon Kane in Bruce Cordell's previous book, and I was sorely disappointed.
Well, the game materials make mention of having to puzzle out at least some things, so the point isn't totally invalid...
-The ultimate "watch my ass", with the Spellplague.
I think that would be a fine idea... you plan to start it, and I'll do what I can to help you.
Ok, i've thought about it and I think I have a structure. Unfortunately I worked it out (through trial and error with a few examples from the FRCG) in LaTeX (the typesetting language) as I was practicing for an upcoming paper I want to write...
So now I have to work out an elegant way to turn the PDF I do have into a board post that other people can have. Once I do that (and collect some more examples from the FRCG), I will start thread.
Ok, i've thought about it and I think I have a structure. Unfortunately I worked it out (through trial and error with a few examples from the FRCG) in LaTeX (the typesetting language) as I was practicing for an upcoming paper I want to write...
So now I have to work out an elegant way to turn the PDF I do have into a board post that other people can have. Once I do that (and collect some more examples from the FRCG), I will start thread.
Sounds good, I have to run now (almost time to have the baby, so no need to rush. I'm sure with your school work and my new boy, we won't get it done over night.
PM me with anything specific you'd like or to let me know where, what, when and all that... if you have the time.
Later all.
So now I have to work out an elegant way to turn the PDF I do have into a board post that other people can have. Once I do that (and collect some more examples from the FRCG), I will start thread.
-E-mail me, I have Adobe Acrobat Professional, and can make .PDF files. Alternatively, I know there are websites where you can download shareware .PDF maker programs.
-E-mail me, I have Adobe Acrobat Professional, and can make .PDF files. Alternatively, I know there are websites where you can download shareware .PDF maker programs.
Ah, LK. Making a PDF isn't a problem, I have a PDF. LaTeX makes them very easily. My problem is that I don't have it in the format of a board post. I didn't think it would be a good reference (no matter how pretty it is) for people if I just posted a link to the PDF file (hosted somewhere) whereas if it is a board post then people can just pop in, look at it and suggest changes should they want to.
Gods gone, Elven Pantheon just an "aspect" of Humans, no more Lantan... All "fire" creatures are evil... spellscarred... Dragonborn or whatever they are... It's like "Hey, let's just take FR and make it a cheesy knock-off of Eberron!"
Especially seeing as this is the second time we've seen the "Nuclear Option" used on the Realms - the first being the "Time of Troubles" - but at least then it was done well and with a story, and the world was at least recognizable.
blah, blah, blah ;)
What I see the problem coming down to is the making of certain presumptions that human nature is a given across all spectrums, and that every human culture is going to go down certain paths because of it, and that something that deviates off of that set course is an illogical aberration somehow. At least that's what I'm getting off of your points.
My contention would be that human nature is considerably more flexible, and that a different world, with a different set of religions and societal factors, are going to provide a different form for that human nature. In the Realms, we had humanity almost grandfathered into sentience by dwarves and elves, we have deities who demonstrably manifest themselves and who provide 'power' (for lack of a better term) in exchange for worship. Those alone are going to make for a very different 'nature', as man is absolutely certain he is not alone, he had help in forming civilizations, and it encourages a level of cooperation and coexistence among people due to divine alliances and friendships. Certainly, humans haven't always lived up to that, but it has formed the basic underpinnings of society to have gotten to the point that it is.
You don't accept that notion? Sure, fine, do what you need to do to have it make sense to you and your game. Agreeing to disagree might be the best option at this point, since I don't really see us agreeing on much else where this is concerned.
Bear in mind that doctrine and practice do not always correspond. The Christian church is based on a doctrine of universal peace and love, and was responsible for several of the worst atrocities in history. Also the religions of the Realms are not exclusive, and so the entire pantheon should be considered when making broad statements about the character that religion brings to daily life.
That plays into 'sustained by plot convenience'. The idea that every barkeep in the world is a retired adventurer has a certain romantic appeal, but once again, it's veneer. It doesn't display the signs of a society that has evolved to this point, because it displays a psychology that is quite at odds with everything we have seen of human development. (It also plays merry hell with the economy, since it presumes a higher standard of living for a substantial portion of the population due to the fact that adventurers make and spend a great deal of money... and yet there is plenty of evidence of subsistance living and even penury among those who, by game logic, have all the skills they need to become adventurers themselves). The reason I like what I'm seeing in new Realms thus far is that it does show signs of a logical evolution from that which we have seen.
Two small notes. First, doctrine and practice will more often coencide when the god or gods who gave you the doctrine are actually present, in the sense that they have a direct connection with their clergy, and discrepancies in interpretation of doctrine can be solved directly by the word of the god is question. Further, those gods will actually show displeasure at violation of thier tenets in an obvious way often enough so that there can be little question. In other words, gods are scarier when your grandfather remembers when they appeared physically and did something, and the word of a god is much more profoundly unavoidable when it comes with the knowledge that it is literally the word of that god, directly, without question.
Also, many, possibly most, people focus their worship on one or two gods per individual person, and there is no(so far as i know) god in the realms who teaches to turn the other cheek, rather most of them value independence if they speak on the matter at all.
Secondly,
As to what is or is not in line with what we've seen in human development, human development on earth occured in the absence of any magic, direct contact with gods, or magical/monstrous beings and races. The development of the realms would make absolutely no sense if it was terribly similar to earths. Think of disease and life span. People live longer, and more free from disease than they did for most of earth's history, and have done for thousands of years, possibly for the entire course of their history. You don't think that alone is going to make things work diferently? the shear number of such examples eliminates any precise comparison completely, and makes any comparison subjective and rather vague at best. There are very very few aspects of daily life that aren't informed by the presence of gods, magic, divine power in clerics, and the other, non-human races.(who are less humans with puddy than star trek aliens
And you're confusing two entirely separate points that are addressing different issues and are based on different premises.
Maybe. Anyway I apologize for being a bit sharp before. I think it's best that we simply agree to disagree on this issue.
I agree with what Stigger and DoctorBadWolf said about religion in the Realms and how it's effectively different from religion on Earth.
4E Realms has raped, RAPED the realms we know.
Its really a clear case of too many chiefs and not enough indians.
Every idea - even that dreadful Abeir - could've been handled differently and been acceptable.
What we got here is a buncha guys who needed a 'clean slate', so they could shoe-horn ALL of their individual ideas into the setting.
Another old saying -"Too many cooks spoil the broth".
You can take wonderful tasting things, but when you throw them all in a blender together, you get something pretty damn gross.
What we needed here was someone running things, and knowing when to say NO! to certain others, and that simply didn't happen. FR was the victim of 'design gone amok'.
I have a feeling at least one in-house guy tried to be the "voice of reason", but unfortunately I think he was out-voted every time. I also have the feeling that whoever was supposed to keep things on an even keel purposely let the others hang themselves, but I'm always looking for conspiraceys, so thats just a matter of opinion.
Another old saying -"Too many cooks spoil the broth".
-That was an answer on Jeopardy! last night. I didn't know the answer, however...
:embarrass...and then realize you are watching Jeopardy on a Saturday night and you'd rather be an idiot 'getting some' out at a club. :D
As to what is or is not in line with what we've seen in human development, human development on earth occured in the absence of any magic, direct contact with gods, or magical/monstrous beings and races...You don't think that alone is going to make things work diferently?
Yes, differently, but not differently enough to make all comparison meaningless. To begin with, access and exposure to all those things is not consistent between different economic strata and geographic regions. If it were, there'd be no substance at all to the medieval veneer apart from the preferred weapons, since by inverse of Clarke's law, any suffuciently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Of course, since we are dealing with a work of fiction, it is entirely possible to have these sorts of non-developments function according to the designers' whims, so all this is moot. I just happen to prefer a bit of evolutionary verisimilitude to my fiction. I'm always annoyed by settings that don't change for thousands of years (particularly in the regard of language... but I should stop there because otherwise I'll rant). I can tolerate it in Tolkien (because he put a lifetime's worth of development into his setting) and in Star Wars (because... actually, I can't figure why. Probably I'm turning a blind eye ;) But with a lot of the recent attention to developing earlier and later timelines, there is a sort of evolution going on... albeit a painfully slow one). But in other settings the trope tends to stick out painfully. It eventually got to be too unbearable in Wheel of Time for me to continue with that series (among other problems... but again, I shouldn't discuss those) and as for Realms... well, you get the idea. If the sourcebooks read like history texts without the thread of development that makes real history texts interesting, then there's little incentive to keep reading. Particularly when the books are written in 8-point font
Yes, differently, but not differently enough to make all comparison meaningless. To begin with, access and exposure to all those things is not consistent between different economic strata and geographic regions. If it were, there'd be no substance at all to the medieval veneer apart from the preferred weapons, since by inverse of Clarke's law, any suffuciently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Of course, since we are dealing with a work of fiction, it is entirely possible to have these sorts of non-developments function according to the designers' whims, so all this is moot. I just happen to prefer a bit of evolutionary verisimilitude to my fiction. I'm always annoyed by settings that don't change for thousands of years (particularly in the regard of language... but I should stop there because otherwise I'll rant). I can tolerate it in Tolkien (because he put a lifetime's worth of development into his setting) and in Star Wars (because... actually, I can't figure why. Probably I'm turning a blind eye ;) But with a lot of the recent attention to developing earlier and later timelines, there is a sort of evolution going on... albeit a painfully slow one). But in other settings the trope tends to stick out painfully. It eventually got to be too unbearable in Wheel of Time for me to continue with that series (among other problems... but again, I shouldn't discuss those) and as for Realms... well, you get the idea. If the sourcebooks read like history texts without the thread of development that makes real history texts interesting, then there's little incentive to keep reading. Particularly when the books are written in 8-point font
The city in general having access to those things is inevitably going to effect the life and mindset of every single person in that community. Every major city having all or most of those things, and most smaller communities having most of those things will, over the ages, effect the life and mindset of every single individual in the society.