FR: What's so great about the Grey Box?

[Yora]

And is it actually?

As some of you might know, I am working on a campaign setting that is completely publically accessible and in addition to an online database, I'd also like to compile some pdfs to make it easily accessible to new players. Now I've heard a lot that the first Forgotten Realms Campaign Set is very highly regarded and seen as superior to later versions. So I guess it might be a good place to look for hints how to structure my stuff in a kind of presentation that people will enjoy.

However taking a look at it, it doesn't really seem that special and the structure seems to be "lacking" in many regards. So what is it that makes the box have such a great reputation? Or is it pure and undiluted nostalgia?

[hamlet]

It's beauty and greatness lies in its simplicity and pre-gonzo expansion burst. The original 1st edition grey box and, to much the same extent, the 2nd edition grey box are clean, crisp, and without the to the pebble explanation and expansion that the splats excreted upon the campaign setting. It's just, to many, a better way of doing things: gives the DM more freedom of movement and expression without worrying about treading on the toes of players who know the setting better than they do.

Plus, I really like the way Ed put together the original. Lots of open promise and possibility rather than explicit stuff trying to be cool. A few of the FR expansions (notably, the North, Waterdeep, the Dalelands, and a couple others) are great to go with it.

Also, there are a great many for whom the endless parade of "Realms Changing Events" really sticks in the craw. Many people still play in the original inception of the world without having paid any attention to the Avatar fiasco or anything like that. I, personally, prefer it that way.

[LibraryOgre]

As hamlet said, there's a lot to be said for the simplicity but...

I find I get the most out of using the 3e FRCS, but the 1e world and deity information. The FRCS is a great, comprehensive resource, except for a few things they changed between 2e and 3e. However, I prefer the 1e setting, pre-Avatar crisis (with the caveat that I add Kelemvor as a less sinister god of the dead).

[Yora]

But what makes the world so significantly different between 1st edition and the other editions? Some things are different, but how does that change the world as a whole?
Unless the reason is "I liked the world as I first knew it, now it's different and I don't want that". :smallwink:

[hamlet]

Agreed to a certain extent. The 3e setting book was probably better organized, especially from the point of view of "modern" gamers.

It did, however, lose the beauty of brevity.

[LibraryOgre]

A few things between 1st and 2nd edition:

The goddess of magic went from being LN to being NG. While they explored the effects of that (i.e. Mystra realized "Hey, I can cut all the evil people off from magic!"), it changes the game world.

Also, the so-called "Dead Three" disappeared, getting subsumed into Cyric. This lessened the diversity of evil and, IMO, tended to get associated with late-TSR's rule that "evil can never win, even for a little while". It led to the Black Network being something of the Keystone Kops of evil... under Cyric.

[hamlet]

But what makes the world so significantly different between 1st edition and the other editions? Some things are different, but how does that change the world as a whole?
Unless the reason is "I liked the world as I first knew it, now it's different and I don't want that". :smallwink:

If you're looking for major, significant, monumental differences, there aren't really any until 4.0.

The core was always, essentially and at its heart, the same. The problem is that once you moved past the grey box, people kept adding more and more and more to that core until it got wholly lost amid all the noise.

People like Greybox because many people find it easier to add what they want and leave the rest than to strip out what they don't want. It's easier to say "it's greybox plus these . . ." than to go in with a scalpel or a hatchet and remove the things you don't like.

Another big thing is that with every new splat or edition, they advanced the timeline and added more cannonical things. It got to the point where the core setting was less and less utiliable because it had been supersumed by later books, but you couldn't do without it either. When FR got turned into the cash cow of TSR AD&D, the original and unique voice of the Realms kind of got lost.

[kaomera]

I don't think that using the Grey Box as a style guide is a great choice. Of course that's also not exactly it's intended purpose... But it was a rather successful product, and I don't think you can accuse consumers in 1987 of simply giving in to nostalgia...

What the Grey Box did do was capture the imagination of gamers. Enough so that it launched the whole mini-industry that FR products have become. There have been other products that have helped that along (and the Grey Box may well not even be the most significant FR product of all time) and others that have detracted from it, but this is where it all started. It had help in getting initial interest in that as a TSR product it not only had the seal of officialness, but also better production values than a lot of it's competition at the time; but it was the content that in the end sealed the deal.

[Yora]

Though I think in regard of the content, FR really isn't that special, especially the Grey Box. But then, it was 30 years ago, when people had much different expectations for a fantasy setting than they do today with lots of CRPGs with their own super-developed worlds and fan-wikis.

[kaomera]

Though I think in regard of the content, FR really isn't that special, especially the Grey Box. But then, it was 30 years ago, when people had much different expectations for a fantasy setting than they do today with lots of CRPGs with their own super-developed worlds and fan-wikis.
So, I'm not really a big FR fan myself, but to a lot of people it really is that special. That's an amalgamation of a lot of things, some of the fiction in particular; but I think one thing that FR got right for a lot of gamers is that it's a place where you can find just about anything. For me, that's not such a great thing, but even I can really appreciate some of the regions in FR as settings in their own right. The only difference I really see those 25 years making is that FR got there first and most people are looking for new and different things. Or, at the very least, better, and for what FR does there really hasn't been that much that has seriously surpassed it (if perhaps somewhat for lack of trying).

[Seatbelt]

I like FR as a setting because, as someone who studies cultures, all the different regions appeal to me. Even if they are just characatures of real-world peoples. Also google chrome's spell checker is utterly useless.

[Lapak]

Though I think in regard of the content, FR really isn't that special, especially the Grey Box. But then, it was 30 years ago, when people had much different expectations for a fantasy setting than they do today with lots of CRPGs with their own super-developed worlds and fan-wikis.I bolded what I consider the critical point. The Grey Box isn't super-developed, and that's what many people consider its strength.

Take two approaches to campaign design:

1. I tell you that an underworld group known as the Fire Knives exists, and hates King Azoun of Cormyr.

2. I tell you that a underworld group known as the Fire Knives exists, WHY they hate King Azoun of Cormyr, and provide stat-blocks and mini-bios for the Fire Knife leadership.

2 has significant upsides: it's easier to use instantly, and the greater background information may provide a DM with adventure hooks. But it's also inherently limiting: if the PCs are too low or too high to make the stat-blocks relevant, if the reason the Fire Knives hate Azoun isn't relevant to the PCs, if you don't find the background or class choice or whatever of the listed leaders interesting.

What the Grey Box did well (in my opinion) is provide the seeds of many possible games instead of providing one particular vision of a game.

EDIT: It kind of goes without saying that you can fit a LOT of type 1 items into the same space as a few of type 2; that has a lot to do with it as well. You get the feeling of an extremely fleshed out setting with a lot of flexibility, since so many things are sketched out but not pinned down.

[Yora]

I wrote a reply (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=12769197#post12769197) to that in another thread I started on that particular subject.