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CyberThread
2013-08-04, 06:12 PM
As far as the SETTING Goes for forgotten realms, what are you hoping to see, or done in the transfer?

hamlet
2013-08-05, 10:36 AM
A reprinting of the original Grey Box edition.:smallbiggrin:

Kurald Galain
2013-08-05, 11:18 AM
Mystra will die! And the weave will be explode! And there will be a big cataclysmic disastrous cataclysm that moves lands around! And turns established locations into a random dungeon instead! And then Mystra will die!

obryn
2013-08-05, 11:50 AM
I hope it's not too threadcrappy to say, "Not much actually?" I'm not a big Forgotten Realms fan in general. The grey box was pretty great, as was a lot of the late 1e/early 2e stuff (not everything, but a lot of it) before the setting got incredibly bloated and canon-y.

The post-Spellplague Realms presented in Neverwinter 4e was pretty great, too. It was interesting and innovative. The 4e FRCS didn't do a good job of showcasing this whole Spellplague thing; Neverwinter was the 4e FR supplement it needed to get good.

But other than that... blah.

-O

Knaight
2013-08-05, 12:08 PM
While FR is pretty much the most boring setting I have ever so much as heard of, I do think that 5e could at least trim it down to usable by removing some of the bloat - which would be nice, if I somehow end up playing a game set in it.

CyberThread
2013-08-05, 03:19 PM
what do you mean by bloat? Most would consider that lore,if that is what I think your talking about.

valadil
2013-08-05, 03:32 PM
what do you mean by bloat? Most would consider that lore,if that is what I think your talking about.

In 3.5 I found the amount of lore intimidating. It made me not want to run the setting, because friends of mine had entire bookshelves dedicated to FR. I didn't want to get told I was running it wrong. Because of this I actually liked that 4e rebooted things. It put us on even footing and I didn't feel overwhelmed anymore. They probably could have delivered a bit more campaign material though.

What I would love to see, which isn't really 5e dependent, would be for all that lore to be digitized, annotated, and made part of 5e's equivalent of DDI. I think it'd be fantastic to be able to search for Luskan and get a whole bunch of dated maps, famous residents, history, etc. Google only goes so far for this. People who have entered this sort of data didn't always know to tag its date. Others post campaign stories mixed in with real history and there's no way to know what's canon.

Back to my first paragraph, I'm not about to read a bookshelf's worth of FR lore. But if that were digitized, I'd be more than happy to let the computer skim it for me so I could read the relevant bits. If my players were heading towards a certain city, I'd absolutely read the sections on that city from a dozen different source books. I think this is something I'd pay a monthly subscription for, especially if it kept up with the rest of DDI.

obryn
2013-08-05, 03:40 PM
what do you mean by bloat? Most would consider that lore,if that is what I think your talking about.
That's the grand paradox of the Realms. For the faithful, that lore is the point of the setting.

For the rest of us, it's a massive and inflexible canon that actively hinders campaign development.

People who are steeped in the lore can certainly run good campaigns. For people who aren't, or who only know bits and pieces, it's more trouble than it's worth. I'd rather do a reboot back to the grey box and say nothing else in the novels or supplements ever happened ... apart from what's happening in this campaign. I did something similar in my Star Wars Saga Edition game - I started with, "R2 and 3PO were either captured or destroyed after ejecting from the Star Destroyer" - and let that invent a new and unfamiliar canon which belonged to my game alone.

-O

Knaight
2013-08-05, 03:57 PM
what do you mean by bloat? Most would consider that lore,if that is what I think your talking about.

I'd consider some of it lore, but most of it is just excessive - and it eats up page space, making it that much harder to find the stuff that isn't needlessly narrow. I'd consider one book enough for the campaign setting, with 300 pages being plenty. Thus, the campaign setting can be trimmed down to the bits that actually matter and the bits that are actually relevant, painted in brushes broad enough that the detail level belongs to the GM.

Icewraith
2013-08-05, 05:48 PM
With the 3.5 FR I found it easiest to pick a blank spot on the map, build my own stuff there, and the characters would work their way back into the fluff provided by the setting.

They got used to things not being exactly the way they were in the book, I got to ease into the "official" material and put my own spin on it as the party encountered it.

However since it's become a tradition for a magical catastrophe to upset Ferun whenever a new edition comes out, I'm expecting Spellplague 2: Son of Spellplague 1.

Alternatively every single being on Faerun turns into Mystra and then explodes.

Scots Dragon
2013-08-05, 06:18 PM
I don't particularly look forward to anything about the New New New New Realms. Which is distinct from the New New New Realms (4e), the New New Realms (3e), the New Realms (2e) and the Realms (1e). Mostly because, to be honest about it, the 4th edition changes basically ruined the setting for me, introducing a series of very needlessly mean-spirited ideas in their destruction of almost everything and then trying to shoehorn in concepts that were never meant to be there in the first place like the Dragonborn and Eladrin.

In the latter case making it a big sweeping retcon that all of the high elves, those being moon elves and sun elves, were originally eladrin to begin with. Which meant that almost all of the elven characters we'd seen up until that point, due to the focus solidly being on those subraces, were now suddenly something known as 'eladrin' despite the mentions of eladrin prior to that being a reference to the type of celestial in 2e and 3e and which form one of the cornerstones of the Planescape campaign setting.

Which I had adored, by the way. Until the 4th edition ruined that as well.

tasw
2013-08-05, 06:55 PM
In 3.5 I found the amount of lore intimidating. It made me not want to run the setting, because friends of mine had entire bookshelves dedicated to FR. I didn't want to get told I was running it wrong. Because of this I actually liked that 4e rebooted things. It put us on even footing and I didn't feel overwhelmed anymore. They probably could have delivered a bit more campaign material though.

What I would love to see, which isn't really 5e dependent, would be for all that lore to be digitized, annotated, and made part of 5e's equivalent of DDI. I think it'd be fantastic to be able to search for Luskan and get a whole bunch of dated maps, famous residents, history, etc. Google only goes so far for this. People who have entered this sort of data didn't always know to tag its date. Others post campaign stories mixed in with real history and there's no way to know what's canon.

Back to my first paragraph, I'm not about to read a bookshelf's worth of FR lore. But if that were digitized, I'd be more than happy to let the computer skim it for me so I could read the relevant bits. If my players were heading towards a certain city, I'd absolutely read the sections on that city from a dozen different source books. I think this is something I'd pay a monthly subscription for, especially if it kept up with the rest of DDI.

I would definitely go for this and if it was only a couple books a month would have no problem paying for it. I blow 5-10$ a month on credits for whatever facebook game I'm into so a realms DDI, or more ideally a DDI for ALL the established campaign settings is something I would definitely go for.

Barring that return to the tan book that came out when 3e first came out. It didnt completely destroy the old lore, had plenty of blank spots left on the map and just enough, and interesting enough detail to be able to play a campaign virtually anywhere in the world you wanted.

navar100
2013-08-05, 11:41 PM
Asmodeous blows up into obliviion of non-existance as the Azuth essence he absorbed bursts forth, reborn into the god of magic.

Torm finally kills Bane for good (pun intended) and is able to use his divine essence to resurrect Tyr.

Ao finally obliterates Cyric once and for all for his deicide. Selune pleads for her sister, saving Shar from the same fate. Ao takes the Shadow Weave away from Shar and uses that to create the new Weave for a new Mystra.

Lathander comes back. He just does. For keeps.

Really, I'm sick and tired of Evil gods always getting away with everything while the Good gods fall. They'll still be Evil gods, but now Evil doesn't win all the time.

Sebastrd
2013-08-06, 11:44 AM
You can find out for sure what's going to happen in a little over a week. They're supposed to unveil/discuss "The Sundering" at Gen Con.

Personally, I gave up on FR in 3.X when I couldn't find a blank spot on the map. I picked the Great Dale because it seemed to be the least inhabited, and even there some great and world-changing event had recently taken place. It didn't help that most of the NPC's they statted out in the sourcebooks, especially Elminster and the Seven Sisters, would have required 45-55 attribute points to get their inflated stats. In contrast PCs were supposed to get 28, 32 in "tough" campaign settings. If I'm gonna have a bunch of Mary Sues and Gary Stus running around the campaign world, they better be my wet dream avatars, not some (other) dirty old man's.

To be fair, although I think Ed is a terrible writer and includes way too much casual promiscuity in his material, the man is a storytelling, word-building, plot scheming machine. I could never hope to match the level of detail and encyclopedic knowledge about just random renaissance/medieval stuff that guy has. Unfortunately, i think there have been too many TSR/WotC sanctioned fanboys running roughshod over the Realms for so many years, it's been ruined for the rest of us.

My ideal FR sourcebook(s) would just be a "Realms as they exist at Ed's table without everyone else's ideas and creations crapping up the place" series.

obryn
2013-08-06, 12:10 PM
My ideal FR sourcebook(s) would just be a "Realms as they exist at Ed's table without everyone else's ideas and creations crapping up the place" series.
So... the grey box? :smallbiggrin:

-O

Yora
2013-08-06, 12:34 PM
Might be interesting to see what they would be doing with the setting if they would go back to before spellplague and start over again from there. But I don't really expect that to happen.

Morty
2013-08-06, 01:23 PM
Is it even going to be Forgotten Realms at this point? After the Spellplague and now some sort of 'Sundering', it honestly feels like all that's left of the setting is the name and the brand.

obryn
2013-08-06, 01:30 PM
Is it even going to be Forgotten Realms at this point? After the Spellplague and now some sort of 'Sundering', it honestly feels like all that's left of the setting is the name and the brand.
I can only hope that it will not, in fact, recognizably be the Forgotten Realms at all.

However, I think it's infinitely more likely there will be a whole bunch of fan service with all kinds of stuff rolled back or an alternate timeline or parallel universe or whatever. Returned Abeir is certainly getting "sundered". And maybe a lot of wink-wink symbolism and all the dragonborn and warlords and tieflings and swordmages will get killed off.

-O

Flickerdart
2013-08-06, 02:39 PM
I'd like to see how they manage to make all of our favourite overpowered Mary Sues in a system where even a level 20 still dies to a bunch of goblins with crossbows.

CyberThread
2013-08-06, 04:12 PM
I feel like an outcast for having heavily enjoyed this..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE58PnuF1nU

Yora
2013-08-06, 04:52 PM
You don't prefer [the Campaign Setting version I like]! You're not a real fan.

CyberThread
2013-08-06, 09:00 PM
that somehow matches your avatar ....

Alleran
2013-08-06, 09:50 PM
My ideal FR sourcebook(s) would just be a "Realms as they exist at Ed's table without everyone else's ideas and creations crapping up the place" series.
There was actually a book about that not too long ago. It was basically pure fluff with no crunch at all. Called "Elminster's Forgotten Realms" or something to that effect, I think.

Anyway, I suspect a certain degree of rollback but with other things sticking around, mostly because it'd be too difficult to remove them now. Mystra has already been resurrected (Elminster Enraged novel), the Harpers are back in gear after mysteriously vanishing for a hundred years, and Ao's reforging the Tablets of Fate (why I'm not sure, after he declared them worthless, but retcon!) to make sure that Abeir goes back to being Abeir and separate from Toril - they're not going to eliminate that entire aspect, unfortunately. Thay is probably sticking around as a land of the (un)dead, and so are the Shades (blech).

The real problem, I think, is that they nuked it in the first place. While lore bloat may or may not have been the case, the way they nuked it wound up doing more harm than good. They seemed to be just trying to clear off the staggering chain of catastrophes and world-changing events that were starting to crop up in every single novel they published. If they could do something more along the lines of the Pathfinder Tales line (i.e. tell stories that don't wreck the status quo established by the main sourcebooks), I think a good chunk of the problem would fix itself.

Craft (Cheese)
2013-08-06, 10:13 PM
If they could do something more along the lines of the Pathfinder Tales line (i.e. tell stories that don't wreck the status quo established by the main sourcebooks), I think a good chunk of the problem would fix itself.

Or they could just say two little words: Not. Canon.

tasw
2013-08-06, 10:21 PM
You can find out for sure what's going to happen in a little over a week. They're supposed to unveil/discuss "The Sundering" at Gen Con.

Personally, I gave up on FR in 3.X when I couldn't find a blank spot on the map. I picked the Great Dale because it seemed to be the least inhabited, and even there some great and world-changing event had recently taken place. It didn't help that most of the NPC's they statted out in the sourcebooks, especially Elminster and the Seven Sisters, would have required 45-55 attribute points to get their inflated stats. In contrast PCs were supposed to get 28, 32 in "tough" campaign settings. If I'm gonna have a bunch of Mary Sues and Gary Stus running around the campaign world, they better be my wet dream avatars, not some (other) dirty old man's.

To be fair, although I think Ed is a terrible writer and includes way too much casual promiscuity in his material, the man is a storytelling, word-building, plot scheming machine. I could never hope to match the level of detail and encyclopedic knowledge about just random renaissance/medieval stuff that guy has. Unfortunately, i think there have been too many TSR/WotC sanctioned fanboys running roughshod over the Realms for so many years, it's been ruined for the rest of us.

My ideal FR sourcebook(s) would just be a "Realms as they exist at Ed's table without everyone else's ideas and creations crapping up the place" series.

I liked R.A. Salvatores books. I would include them. But otherwise yes.



I can only hope that it will not, in fact, recognizably be the Forgotten Realms at all.

However, I think it's infinitely more likely there will be a whole bunch of fan service with all kinds of stuff rolled back or an alternate timeline or parallel universe or whatever. Returned Abeir is certainly getting "sundered". And maybe a lot of wink-wink symbolism and all the dragonborn and warlords and tieflings and swordmages will get killed off.

-O
If they DONT kick all of the stupid changes that late 3e and all of 4e did to the realms it wont be worth paying 5$ for, nvm the 30$ or more they are likely to charge.

Alleran
2013-08-06, 11:04 PM
Or they could just say two little words: Not. Canon.
They could, but I think that might interfere with the original contract with Greenwood under which they own and publish FR material, which supposedly states (among other things) that they publish at least one new novel (canonical) per year or the equivalent from him.

I don't really see the problem with small stories that don't bludgeon the status quo with a baseball bat. Individual GMs are absolutely free to rule that they didn't happen in "their" Realms if they don't feel like reading them, and their small scale would make them easy to discount as well. It's the world-shaking catastrophes that I have issue with, and what I attribute the main problem to. You don't deal with a problematic tree stealing the sunlight in your garden by covering the entire backyard in petrol and lighting a match, you simply chop down that particular tree.

DeltaEmil
2013-08-07, 12:22 AM
They should do with it what they did with Dark Sun in D&D 4th edition.

Use the original published setting, and say that this is the starting point.

Give all the stuff that did happen as stuff that could happen, as plot hooks and adventure idea, just like they said in Champion of Valor how instead of being NPC this and that who did this and that or who caused this and that or prevented this and that, let it be the player characters who instead might do this and that, or cause this and that, or prevent this and that.

This and that might lead to the Times of Troubles. This and that might lead to the Spellplague. This and that might lead to the Sundering. This and that might lead to the Horde war. This and that might lead to the kingdom of Many-Arrows. This and that might lead to the complete genocide of all elves. This and that might lead to the Thunder Blessing.

Do not ever make the novels canon for the game setting. Every splatbook that advances the timeline is to be declared as alternate possibility, which can never be canon. Make splatbooks that advance the timeline and that have completely different outcomes. Make it that in this splatbook which tells about this and that region with this and that new classes, magic items, new monsters, and new rules for specific mechanics has the collapse of the orc kingdom as the basis. In another splatbook about new stuff, have the orc kingdom conquer the rest of the continent, and be the ultimate superpower. In one story, Chult was conquered by all goblins, and now a dinosaur-riding goblin army is waging war against the rest of the continent. In another one, Mezro has become a dinosaur-exporting trade city. Calimport has been destroyed by a meteorite. Calimport is all well. Calimport has been quarantined because of a great disease. Calimport has been conquered by dinosaur-riding goblins. Calimport is the new capital of genasi warlords from the parallel prime material plane called Abeir. Calimport is a colony of the zakharan caliph. Calimport is being ravaged by Amn and Tethyr. There are firearms in the Forgotten Realms. There are no firearms in the Forgotten Realms. There are magitech guns in the Forgotten Realms. There is primitive and worthless smokepowder firearms in the Forgotten Realms. Every knight is a Tome of Battle Warblade. Nothing of Tome of Battle exists in the Forgotten Realms. Every knight is a soulborn. Nothing of Magic of Incarnum exists in the Forgotten Realms. Every knight is a level 10 warrior. There are no NPC classes in the Forgotten Realms. All assassins died, because Baal died. All assassins died, because they waged a terrible shadow war against each another. All assassins died, because they were wiped out by wizards. All assassins died, because Abeir returned. All assassins died, because they were hunted down by dwarves. All assassins died, because Ao willed it so.
Ao exists. Ao does not exist. Ao exists, but is only one of three overdeities. Ao exists, but serves a more powerful being. Ao exists, and there is nothing above Ao. Ao has never shown itself. Ao has long left Toril. Ao has returned to Toril. Ao is an overdeity. Ao is not an overdeity. Ao is Gruumsh. Ao is Elminster. Ao is Pun Pun. Ao is an Athasian sorcerer king. Ao is the lady of pain.

Make every timeline advancement incompatible to each another, and declare officially that the canon timeline is the one which the gaming group likes the most, if they even use it at all.

The Grey Box is canon. Everything after that is official fanfiction that is to inspire more fanfiction, and to help gaming groups make their own stories.

But they will never do that.

CyberThread
2013-08-07, 12:46 AM
<-< if they made everything not cannon ... I would be ..mad haha, like when they did the star trek reboot, but not that mad.

Forgotten realms does not suffer*tolerate* the same way eberron books are.

TuggyNE
2013-08-07, 02:50 AM
what do you mean by bloat? Most would consider that lore,if that is what I think your talking about.

Most FR fans would, yes; most anybody else, whether or not they play D&D, would likely consider it chiefly or wholly bloat.


However since it's become a tradition for a magical catastrophe to upset Ferun whenever a new edition comes out, I'm expecting Spellplague 2: Son of Spellplague 1.

Alternatively every single being on Faerun turns into Mystra and then explodes.

I was gonna say Spellplague 2: Electric Boogaloo, but I think I like yours better. Especially the last sentence. :smallbiggrin:

Alleran
2013-08-07, 03:39 AM
I was gonna say Spellplague 2: Electric Boogaloo, but I think I like yours better. Especially the last sentence. :smallbiggrin:
Not Sellplague 2: The Quickening?

Or does that do a disservice to the original Highlander?

Saph
2013-08-07, 04:06 AM
I'd like them to retcon all of the 4e changes as never having happened. No Spellplague, no sudden race-lifts, no randomly nuking a bunch of countries, etc.

Doubt they'll do it, though.

hamlet
2013-08-07, 07:58 AM
So... the grey box? :smallbiggrin:

-O

I keep saying . . .

But, really, what's stopping you at all from running a D&D Next campaign running nothing but the Grey Box in any case? Hell, if I hadn't fallen out of interest with D&D Next, I was seriuosly thinking about running a Realms campaign there.

obryn
2013-08-07, 08:01 AM
They should do with it what they did with Dark Sun in D&D 4th edition.

Use the original published setting, and say that this is the starting point

...But they will never do that.
I'd be very much on board with this, but I agree it'll never happen. :smallsmile: Dark Sun fans are different from Forgotten Realms fans, largely in that they tend to like to ignore the (immensely smaller!) established canon and timeline past the original box set. I know I always did!

I thought the timeline roll-back was the smartest thing they could have done with Dark Sun. I think it'd be crazy with the Realms because the most vocal Realms fans can be ... kinda obsessive. I think you almost have to be with that degree of time investment and commitment to reading sub-par fantasy novels. :smallbiggrin:

E:

I keep saying . . .

But, really, what's stopping you at all from running a D&D Next campaign running nothing but the Grey Box in any case? Hell, if I hadn't fallen out of interest with D&D Next, I was seriuosly thinking about running a Realms campaign there.
Before the Neverwinter book came out, which really did a bang-up job at reinventing and improving the 4e FR setting, that's what I would have done if I'd ever wanted to run a Forgotten Realms campaign.

-O

Morty
2013-08-07, 08:03 AM
I'd like them to retcon all of the 4e changes as never having happened. No Spellplague, no sudden race-lifts, no randomly nuking a bunch of countries, etc.

Doubt they'll do it, though.

They're more likely to revert it all on-screen, but un-nuking those countries, re-lifting the races and so on.

hamlet
2013-08-07, 08:05 AM
I'd be very much on board with this, but I agree it'll never happen. :smallsmile: Dark Sun fans are different from Forgotten Realms fans, largely in that they tend to like to ignore the (immensely smaller!) established canon and timeline past the original box set. I know I always did!

I thought the timeline roll-back was the smartest thing they could have done with Dark Sun. I think it'd be crazy with the Realms because the most vocal Realms fans can be ... kinda obsessive. I think you almost have to be with that degree of time investment and commitment to reading sub-par fantasy novels. :smallbiggrin:

E:

Before the Neverwinter book came out, which really did a bang-up job at reinventing and improving the 4e FR setting, that's what I would have done if I'd ever wanted to run a Forgotten Realms campaign.

-O

Yes, Realms fans (and any fan, really) can get kind of crazy about such things.

Actually, I think the best thing that they can do is to flat out NOT have a "living world" kind of set up. Republish the setting, preferably roll it back to the Greybox pre-Time of Troubles, and then do not advance the timeline and demand that your customers have to pay a continual fee to "keep up." Let the world stand on its own. You can create all you want to go into depth here and there, but don't drag the timeline forward constantly. Leave it where it is and let the freakin' players do that. It's what they're there for.

CyberThread
2013-08-07, 01:01 PM
Am confused, you say NOT to do it as a living world, yet...you say it is the players job to continue the storyline? Besides the novels, the living world concept comes from setup adventures for feedback by players on how they want to resolve it and use that as a indicator on how to move the world forward * in theory *

FR is Wiz's top selling setting for a reason.

Sebastrd
2013-08-07, 03:14 PM
I liked R.A. Salvatores books. I would include them. But otherwise yes.

Agreed. I never had the experiences with Drizzt clones that everyone else did, so I still enjoy the character and his stories. His non-Drizzt material on the other hand...

Sebastrd
2013-08-07, 03:31 PM
I'd like them to retcon all of the 4e changes as never having happened. No Spellplague, no sudden race-lifts, no randomly nuking a bunch of countries, etc.

Doubt they'll do it, though.

If they ever did that, I swear by my left nut I will travel to Toril myself and burn Maztica, Unther, Mullhorand, etc. to the ground and roast the Seven Sisters over the smoking ruins like Chosen of Mystra smores and then force a wimpering Elminster to watch while I eat them one by one as Mystra's latest incarnation hangs from a nearby tree. And I'll do it in the form of a Dark Elf, dual-wielding scimitars, wearing a Harper pin, and high-five Ao on my way out.

Or I just won't buy the book. It could go either way.

For what it's worth, I love the Realms. Elminster is fine in small doses. He's kind of like Gandalf in LotR with a 70's, love child bent to him. But as time went on, his power (and that of Mystra, the Seven Sisters, etc.) got dialed up to 11. Kind of like how Superman went from running faster than a locomotive and leaping tall buildings to flying around the world fast enough to time travel and shattering planets with a single punch. And I hold a special kind of hatred for fantasy cultures that are just real world analogs with the serial numbers filed off.

hamlet
2013-08-07, 03:49 PM
Am confused, you say NOT to do it as a living world, yet...you say it is the players job to continue the storyline? Besides the novels, the living world concept comes from setup adventures for feedback by players on how they want to resolve it and use that as a indicator on how to move the world forward * in theory *

FR is Wiz's top selling setting for a reason.

By "living world" I mean that the campaign timeline is officially advanced in publiished materials and that future published materials build on that rather than on the original setting.

The players, in their own campaigns, advance time in the Realms as they choose, or not. It's not for the publisher to say "And the official year is not 3297, please advance your calendars . . ."

Think Greyhawk as opposed to Forgotten Realms. There's a lot of stuff published, ostensibly, for Greyhawk, but very little of it actually advances the year or "story" of any place. Unless you grab up the "From the Ashes" box, the year in that setting is what it is in the main setting books plus whatever you added to it in your own campaign, not any further.

So, no "and then this happened" type modules. No Realms Shaking Events! For the love of whatever you hold holy, no Realms Shaking Events. No "Living World" campaigns that advance play in tournaments. No advancing of stories or timelines in novels (I'm ok with novels being published, but they shouldn't be game world canon EVER).

You don't need to write a freakin' drama with plot to make it a best selling campaign world.

Craft (Cheese)
2013-08-07, 04:53 PM
I keep saying . . .

But, really, what's stopping you at all from running a D&D Next campaign running nothing but the Grey Box in any case? Hell, if I hadn't fallen out of interest with D&D Next, I was seriuosly thinking about running a Realms campaign there.

Well technically nothing stopping us, but there is going to be somewhat of a barrier in that if the marketing is to be believed, Post-Sundering FR is going to be the default setting in 5E. And not in the way "Greyhawk" was the default setting of 3rd Edition where all the context was stripped out. It'll be a problem for grey box FR for the same reason it's a problem for homebrew settings: Players walk into the game filled with assumptions the fluff in the book gives them that you have to undo.

Saph
2013-08-07, 06:05 PM
For what it's worth, I love the Realms. Elminster is fine in small doses. He's kind of like Gandalf in LotR with a 70's, love child bent to him. But as time went on, his power (and that of Mystra, the Seven Sisters, etc.) got dialed up to 11.

Meh, I couldn't care less about Elminster. Never read any of the books where he's the protagonist, never seen/used him in a game. I don't pay any attention to the NPCs of FR – it's the countries and setting that I loved, which was why I was so annoyed when WotC decided to nuke them.

Sebastrd
2013-08-07, 07:04 PM
Meh, I couldn't care less about Elminster. Never read any of the books where he's the protagonist, never seen/used him in a game. I don't pay any attention to the NPCs of FR – it's the countries and setting that I loved, which was why I was so annoyed when WotC decided to nuke them.

They didn't nuke any of the countries I found important, just most of the real-world ripoffs. All the cool places like Cormyr, Waterdeep, Neverwinter, Thay, etc. were left intact. I wasn't a big fan of them shoehorning the more exotic races into the setting, though.

Felhammer
2013-08-07, 07:26 PM
You can find out for sure what's going to happen in a little over a week. They're supposed to unveil/discuss "The Sundering" at Gen Con.

Personally, I gave up on FR in 3.X when I couldn't find a blank spot on the map.

Why should a setting have a blank spot? Open/unclaimed territory? Sure (and even 3.5 has that (The shaded areas (http://www.mythopoeicpress.com/fr_faerun_political_boundaries.jpg))). If you just mean areas without labels, then there are vast swathes of blank areas in the endless wastes, Eastern Amn/Western Shining Plains, areas of Anauroch (though obviously not ideal), the High Ice, etc. Not to mention all of the other areas around Faerun.

Ironically, I remember R.A. Salvatore making a similar complaint about the lack of open "space" in which to write his stories, so at least you are in good company :)



Most FR fans would, yes; most anybody else, whether or not they play D&D, would likely consider it chiefly or wholly bloat.

There's nothing wrong with "bloat" since there are hordes of other settings that lack that "bloat." Both should exist because different people enjoy different things.

Alleran
2013-08-07, 07:31 PM
Why should a setting have a blank spot? Open/unclaimed territory? Sure (and even 3.5 has that (The shaded areas (http://www.mythopoeicpress.com/fr_faerun_political_boundaries.jpg))). If you just mean areas without labels, then there are vast swathes of blank areas in the endless wastes, Eastern Amn/Western Shining Plains, areas of Anauroch (though obviously not ideal), the High Ice, etc. Not to mention all of the other areas around Faerun.
There's also the Border Kingdoms, which were just about tailor-made to have shifting, ever-changing borders where a group of PCs can build their own kingdom, carving it out of the land around them.

Craft (Cheese)
2013-08-07, 10:25 PM
So guys, I just decided to open up the PA Report and, this might be old news, but I think it's relevant. (http://penny-arcade.com/report/article/wizards-of-the-coast-is-about-to-start-a-massive-global-game-of-dd-to-resha)

Highlights:

- The Sundering really is all about undoing the spellplague to bring back the "enfranchised" FR fans.

- WotC wants to run a great big open campaign to determine the direction the "rebuilding" will take. Because it worked so well when Games Workshop tried it.

obryn
2013-08-07, 11:11 PM
Why should a setting have a blank spot?
I'll just quote from the Forgotten Realms itself. :smallbiggrin:


A Note on Future Products: Certain areas of each of the enlarged maps of the Forgotten Realms will contain areas that will not have future adventures, modules, or sourcebooks set in them, and are left solely for use by the DM for development without fear of some later product invalidating that portion of his campaign. In the initial boxed set, those areas are:

The Serpent Hills (east of the High Moor)
The Wood of Sharp Teeth
The Desertedge Mountains (outside the Dales), and
The Nation of Sembia.

The last mentioned, the nation of Sembia, is a large section of (partially) civilized land with the following borders: starting with the west, the Vast Swamp, the Daerlun, the path through Kulta, Saerb, and Archenbridge (including parts of Archendale to Ordulin, east to the Dragon Reach, and bordered on the south by the Sea of Fallen Stars.

This region, though discussed in the players’ guide and in this book, will not have further adventures set in it, nor will its cities be explored or detailed. A DM with a campaign city or nation already designed may set that city in the area of Sembia without great difficulty caused by future products setting some epic adventures (or great disaster) in the same region.

Further, the region across the Dragon Reach, from the River Vesper South and to the edge of Map 2 has been set aside for use by the RPGA™ network as a base for adventures and tournaments in the Forgotten Realms, and is left for the further explanation by those areas, or by the DM.

-O

jedipotter
2013-08-07, 11:57 PM
In 3.5 I found the amount of lore intimidating. It made me not want to run the setting, because friends of mine had entire bookshelves dedicated to FR.

Wow, you would have loved 2E FR, that had...oh ten times the amount of lore.


I kinda wish Wizards would just drop the Realms. I love the setting, but doubt they will ever do it justice. And Wizards does not really seem to want to print D&D books anyway. Even if the keep FR around they will publish like what, one book a year?

And I would love to have source books on...well...every single place in the Realms, but not massive $45 hard bounds that cram in half the continent. More like small $10 soft bound books, like the old D &D Gezzeters.

Lorsa
2013-08-09, 06:40 AM
I thought I disliked FR, until I decided to read the 3.5 campaign book. That changed my mind and it seemed like the creator of the FR had much the same ideas of what a world to play D&D in would look like. It also specifically mentioned that a GM was encouraged to change or disregard anything that didn't fit into the specific campaign or add in new things. So far it's one of the few created worlds I have read that state this to you in explicit detail.

I didn't quite like 4e D&D so naturally I didn't like the changes made to FR to fit into the 4e ruleset either (what I have read, haven't seen everything of course). But as a general world, I have come to enjoy the FR. It works better than I thought and I usually hate pre-made settings.

Sebastrd
2013-08-09, 07:45 AM
Why should a setting have a blank spot?

I don't mean blank as in "nothing is there", I mean blank as in "I can run an adventure without stepping all over the toes of canon there". Every spot I researched had some sort of big event going on in the canon. Even the Great Dale - the most out of the way place I could find - had some feud going on between a powerful druid and a Chosen of Talona or something like that.

Personally, I think a great campaign setting ought to have lots of hooks, not lots of stories. If I want stories, I'll go read a novel.

hamlet
2013-08-09, 07:49 AM
I don't mean blank as in "nothing is there", I mean blank as in "I can run an adventure without stepping all over the toes of canon there". Every spot I researched had some sort of big event going on in the canon. Even the Great Dale - the most out of the way place I could find - had some feud going on between a powerful druid and a Chosen of Talona or something like that.

Personally, I think a great campaign setting ought to have lots of hooks, not lots of stories. If I want stories, I'll go read a novel.

Amen.

Go read Kingdoms of Kalamar. I think you'll like it.

LibraryOgre
2013-08-09, 09:11 AM
The Realms is one of my favorite settings, but, like a lot of folk, I tend towards a much earlier set up. I set the world before the Time of Troubles, with a few select things from the post-Troubles (like Kelemvor as a God of the Dead). While I think the 3.0 FRCS is one of the best single-volume collections of Realmslore out there, it's set a bit late in the period for me.


Amen.

Go read Kingdoms of Kalamar. I think you'll like it.

And play Hackmaster.

hamlet
2013-08-09, 09:36 AM
And play Hackmaster.

Yeah, I have to find a group who aren't sissies and are willing to give it a try first.

LibraryOgre
2013-08-10, 12:35 AM
Yeah, I have to find a group who aren't sissies and are willing to give it a try first.

Pregens. I find so much resistance goes away when you have a pregenned adventure and characters.

jedipotter
2013-08-10, 09:59 AM
I don't mean blank as in "nothing is there", I mean blank as in "I can run an adventure without stepping all over the toes of canon there". Every spot I researched had some sort of big event going on in the canon. Even the Great Dale - the most out of the way place I could find - had some feud going on between a powerful druid and a Chosen of Talona or something like that.

Personally, I think a great campaign setting ought to have lots of hooks, not lots of stories. If I want stories, I'll go read a novel.

I like all the stories. They give a great back drop.

But I'll never get the idea of ''well there is a story in Waterdeep, so we can't play there''. Anything short of Waterdeep exploding won't effect your own story. If you have a group going after some were rats in the sewer, it does not even matter if say the city above catches on fire. And even if the characters are epic, not all events will effect them anyway.....so king Gol dies, that does not end the game, it's is just ''oh prince Dul is now king."

LibraryOgre
2013-08-10, 10:30 AM
With the whole "There's too much metaplot" reason for FR, I have two responses.

1) Play earlier. Set things before the metaplot, and the metaplot is unimportant. Thus my preference for pre-TOT.

2) If you have people who are heavily into Realmslore, make clear that the metaplot is stories... things that may or may not have happened. Relying on it, especially if the DM hasn't read it, is a bad idea.

jedipotter
2013-08-10, 11:33 AM
With the whole "There's too much metaplot" reason for FR, I have two responses.

1) Play earlier. Set things before the metaplot, and the metaplot is unimportant. Thus my preference for pre-TOT.

2) If you have people who are heavily into Realmslore, make clear that the metaplot is stories... things that may or may not have happened. Relying on it, especially if the DM hasn't read it, is a bad idea.

I use 1) a lot. Someone will try to do something and I'll have to remind them ''it is only 1350 DR, what your thinking off happens decades in the future. My big game is even set in 65 DR, way before all that 'plot' stuff.

I use 2) it's a lot of stories...but what is the truth.

Roman K
2013-08-10, 05:12 PM
*bows in*

As a longtime FR fan (who is often left wondering when, if ever, TSR ever bothered with checking the quality of authors' writing, and why WotC seemingly inherited the same approach), I find this newer Realms Reshuffle to be of particular interest.

I do like the lore, even if I don't know or can't recall a great deal of it. And in general, picking an era and then treating everything before it as either uncertain or difficult to verify (news does travel slowly, after all, and changes a great deal with each retelling) worked fine in most games I was part of. Personally, I saw the old sourcebooks as a fantastic way to get an introduction to a region, particularly for one who did not want to craft an entire kingdom from top to bottom.

And the Realms did produce novels I thoroughly enjoyed over the years. Even if they did let Ed Greenwood write the odd one... amazing world-builder, atrocious writer.

But back to the Sundering itself... I recently read the first novel related to it, The Companions by R. A. Salvatore. There's a Sundering series (http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/The_Sundering_%28series%29), and it seems some of the more competent writers were picked for it. Apparently, even Greenwood had some decent novels as of late.

Game-wise, there's Murder in Baldur's Gate (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Product.aspx?x=dnd/products/dndacc/45370000), which is somewhere between adventure-book and source-book for Baldur's Gate at the Sundering time. But the price... sigh

And yet, I note the symbol. The Lord of Murder isn't quite perished, then? Not sure about the final details of this adventure, but I tend to prefer the Realms somewhere around 2e, with titbits from before the Time of Troubles. As nods to nostalgia go, Bhaal is a nice touch.

Dante & Vergil
2013-08-10, 05:29 PM
One thing I remember seeing at WotC forums, and one thing I'd think would be cool to have happen, was Karsus' Return, and as such, him becoming the new god of magic.
That is all.

Calmar
2013-08-10, 05:51 PM
Murder in Baldur's Gate (and the apparent edition-neutral approach) makes me so excited for the new incarnation of the realms. I hope they go back to the style ofthe 2E FRCS where the Realms are not POL and everything isn't dominated by cataclysms, but where the setting is largely left open for the players to use as they wish. You know, that inspiring combination of rich lore and blank areas on the map. :smallsmile:

Edit: Just watched the Story Summit; is it just me or does Ed Greenwood look a lot younger than he did years ago? :smallconfused:

Felhammer
2013-08-10, 09:35 PM
Edit: Just watched the Story Summit; is it just me or does Ed Greenwood look a lot younger than he did years ago? :smallconfused:

I think it is because he has lost a lot of weight.

Here he is from 2010: http://sci-fi-vanguard.weebly.com/uploads/2/9/3/1/2931026/9629834.jpg?358

Compared to what he is now in the Story Summit Video: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v614/RHO1/ed_zps9d2820b6.png


That's a significant weight drop. Good for him, I think we should all follow in his footsteps and loose a few extra pounds. :smallsmile:

Alleran
2013-08-10, 11:45 PM
(like Kelemvor as a God of the Dead)
You. I like you.


And yet, I note the symbol. The Lord of Murder isn't quite perished, then? Not sure about the final details of this adventure, but I tend to prefer the Realms somewhere around 2e, with titbits from before the Time of Troubles. As nods to nostalgia go, Bhaal is a nice touch.
Eh. The FR games I run take the Baldur's Gate computer games as "what happened" for my part, so I'm not sure how I feel about Bhaal coming back up again. So I'll probably ignore that (of course, my FR group is sitting somewhere around 1365 DR at present anyway, so the Bhaalspawn saga, Azoun's death, Shade's return and so on hasn't even happened yet, and the Sellplague is decades away and will be 99% certain to be ignored or stopped by the PCs).

Yora
2013-08-11, 01:34 AM
With the whole "There's too much metaplot" reason for FR, I have two responses.

1) Play earlier. Set things before the metaplot, and the metaplot is unimportant. Thus my preference for pre-TOT.

2) If you have people who are heavily into Realmslore, make clear that the metaplot is stories... things that may or may not have happened. Relying on it, especially if the DM hasn't read it, is a bad idea.

I think if I would run an FR game again, I would set it before the Time of Troubles, but still use all information from 2nd Edition that does not conflict with the 1st Edition material. Most of the descriptions of towns, dungeons, and deities are completely unaffected by that.

Calmar
2013-08-11, 04:27 AM
When I started running D&D games, I did it like the Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale games: I used the sourcebooks, picked a region I liked, and all the factions and lore I needed, the rest being unimportant to me. Worked well until I got a player who read all the (often weird) novels and who would try to use his 'knowledge' to find flaws in my plots and try to outwit me by using obscure information I didn't know. :smallfrown:
Now I run my own setting.

Felhammer
2013-08-11, 05:23 AM
When I started running D&D games, I did it like the Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale games: I used the sourcebooks, picked a region I liked, and all the factions and lore I needed, the rest being unimportant to me. Worked well until I got a player who read all the (often weird) novels and who would try to use his 'knowledge' to find flaws in my plots and try to outwit me by using obscure information I didn't know. :smallfrown:
Now I run my own setting.

That's why I always say, "the source books that have been released up to the start date of this campaign are the only sources of canon that will be used. I reserve the right to add past or future novels as well as future source books to the list of what is considered canon for this campaign."

Calmar
2013-08-11, 08:28 AM
That's why I always say, "the source books that have been released up to the start date of this campaign are the only sources of canon that will be used. I reserve the right to add past or future novels as well as future source books to the list of what is considered canon for this campaign."

Of course you are right, but in my case it was basically a constant attack on my authority as a DM - and I don't want to play authority when I run a game in the first place. The way I see it, DM and players are both responsible for the others to have fun.

That said, Forgotten Realms is definitely among my favourite settings next to Planescape and my own world. I am very happy that they (apparently) take a step back. Only now do I realise how I missed looking forward for new stuff Wizards comes up with. :smallconfused:/:smallsmile:

jedipotter
2013-08-11, 08:40 AM
[QUOTE=Calmar;15799385] Worked well until I got a player who read all the (often weird) novels and who would try to use his 'knowledge' to find flaws in my plots and try to outwit me by using obscure information I didn't know. QUOTE]

I've had so much fun with this. A player or two that would go all out to find a person, place or thing they knew about from a novel or other book. And then finding out the rest of the story.

Sebastrd
2013-08-11, 09:23 AM
I like all the stories. They give a great back drop.

But I'll never get the idea of ''well there is a story in Waterdeep, so we can't play there''. Anything short of Waterdeep exploding won't effect your own story. If you have a group going after some were rats in the sewer, it does not even matter if say the city above catches on fire. And even if the characters are epic, not all events will effect them anyway.....so king Gol dies, that does not end the game, it's is just ''oh prince Dul is now king."

It's not a matter of can't, it's a matter of don't want to. Realmslore is a two-edged sword. On the one hand it's nice to have a lot of the work done for you, and it's fun to read at the same time. Unfortunately, it can be stifling to a DM who wants to tell their own story instead of just cribbing off someone else's. The folks working on the Realms could never seem to resist solving their own mysteries, leaving nothing for the players to accomplish.

The 3E FRCS did a great job in the "Geography" chapter and in the "Known Dungeons" section of providing tons of interesting hooks. They introduced just enough story to get you going and left it at that...for a while. If they'd have left well enough alone, I might still be running the Realms today. But between all the solved mysteries, the Mary Sue/Gary Stu NPC's, and enough deities to choke a purple worm, I gave up. I'd rather just run my own campaign setting.

jedipotter
2013-08-11, 10:04 AM
It's not a matter of can't, it's a matter of don't want to. Realmslore is a two-edged sword. On the one hand it's nice to have a lot of the work done for you, and it's fun to read at the same time. Unfortunately, it can be stifling to a DM who wants to tell their own story instead of just cribbing off someone else's. The folks working on the Realms could never seem to resist solving their own mysteries, leaving nothing for the players to accomplish.

You don't want to say ''well story A'' is going on across the street...but that does not matter to my game as we are on ''story B''? I still don't get it.

Even if the Realmslore said ''Waterdeep blows up at midnight'', it is not like you have to hurry up and play before midnight. And then when midnight comes along say ''oh well guys the city blows up, guess we can't continue our game of finding the wererat king of Waterdeep.''

And your saying you like lots of hooks and suggestions...well is that not cribbing off someones ideas too? You really want the waste of space that says ''Oh the Dark Forest is full of monsters and ruins''? That is not all that.

LibraryOgre
2013-08-11, 10:56 AM
I think if I would run an FR game again, I would set it before the Time of Troubles, but still use all information from 2nd Edition that does not conflict with the 1st Edition material. Most of the descriptions of towns, dungeons, and deities are completely unaffected by that.

I actually use the 3e FRCS for that. I find it to be a great, single volume resource for things away from "home", where the actions of the PCs tend to be the central shapers of action.


Of course you are right, but in my case it was basically a constant attack on my authority as a DM

Oh, gods, my condolences. I hate players like that. In many ways, they're worse than rules lawyers.

Yora
2013-08-11, 11:26 AM
I'm more one of those North-only guys, and the 2nd Ed. box is really quite detailed, while 3rd Ed. Silver Marches seems to be starting a whole bunch of new developments that go away from the old Savage Frontier book. Like moving the orcs out of Felbar, dwarves back into Mithril Hall, and such.

Roman K
2013-08-11, 11:36 AM
Eh. The FR games I run take the Baldur's Gate computer games as "what happened" for my part, so I'm not sure how I feel about Bhaal coming back up again.

Well, these are not mutually exclusive, actually. Firstly, there's that horrendous novelization Baldur's Gate that was published by WotC - never did check on how "canon" they saw that one... Secondly, not all Bhaalspawn are assumed to be dead following the events of Throne of Bhaal - merely enough to negate most of the collected divine energy of the Bhaalspawn who died.

Thirdly... there could be more than one plot, simple as that, for a defeated divine's remnant essence to regroup and return. Dead deities have a tendency of... lingering, at least as far as most Planes-related sourcebooks had to say about that over the years. Baldur's Gate closed one avenue for Bhaal's return, nothing more. So story-wise? Still works.

What's interesting about this DnD Encounters adventure is that it's rules-agnostic, at least from 3.5e and up. It's also one of the Encounters event whose results will shape the Realms, in that players participating in the officially-sanctioned games get to give feedback on it based on their experiences.

Alleran
2013-08-11, 12:21 PM
Firstly, there's that horrendous novelization Baldur's Gate that was published by WotC - never did check on how "canon" they saw that one...
And do you know what I say to any mention of those eye-gouging books?

LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU.

:smallyuk:


Dead deities have a tendency of... lingering, at least as far as most Planes-related sourcebooks had to say about that over the years. Baldur's Gate closed one avenue for Bhaal's return, nothing more. So story-wise? Still works.
Yeah, corpses on the Astral Plane. That said, to elaborate slightly, when I say that I treat the BG computer games as effectively the canon I also meant that to me they are "the story" of the Bhaalspawn saga. Once that's finished, it's done, and Bhaal's tale as a god, from life to death and (forestalled) rebirth, is finished. While leaving behind plot hooks for potential future adventures can work sometimes, I tend to think that eventually it's time to move on to a new story, and the Bhaalspawn saga should be one of the ones that's wrapped up and over. Like the character epilogues, which might describe what individuals went on to do, but it wasn't more Bhaalspawn stuff. It was other things, other stories.

Your mileage may vary.

Morty
2013-08-11, 01:14 PM
Honestly, I just wish they'd leave FR alone. I have a sentiment for the setting, mostly due to the Infinity Engine games, but also because it just feels like a quintessential fantasy adventure setting. So I'm willing to ignore the fact that it doesn't really make sense. One day I might run a Forgotten Realms game in a system better than D&D. To see it put through yet another meat grinder just because they want to cash in on the brand some more... leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Roman K
2013-08-11, 02:55 PM
And do you know what I say to any mention of those eye-gouging books?

LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU.

:smallyuk:

Hah! I can definitely understand that reaction. The Baldur's Gate novelization is a crime against humanity.


Once that's finished, it's done, and Bhaal's tale as a god, from life to death and (forestalled) rebirth, is finished.

Oh, I dunno... the Bhaalspawn plotline is over, that much is true. But Bhaal? I think the stories of gods never quite end, and there's certainly good that comes from that. I certainly find him more interesting than that random psychotic, Cyric.

LibraryOgre
2013-08-11, 02:57 PM
Oh, I dunno... the Bhaalspawn plotline is over, that much is true. But Bhaal? I think the stories of gods never quite end, and there's certainly good that comes from that. I certainly find him more interesting than that random psychotic, Cyric.

Part of my favoring of pre-TOT comes from the lack of Cyric.

Yora
2013-08-11, 03:28 PM
Hah! I can definitely understand that reaction. The Baldur's Gate novelization is a crime against humanity.
Have you ever read Spellfire by Greenwood himself? That one still ranks as the worst thing I've ever read.

Roman K
2013-08-11, 03:51 PM
Have you ever read Spellfire by Greenwood himself? That one still ranks as the worst thing I've ever read.

Oh yes, that I have. One of my earliest Forgotten Realms novels, ironically enough.

I ascribe the fact that I still read anything branded by FR or TSR after that to my very early youth.

obryn
2013-08-11, 04:04 PM
Well, despite my general feelings about the Realms and lukewarm-but-warming feelings about Next, I ordered Murder in Baldur's Gate and will run it for my group. They like the Realms, so I guess that works. :)

-O

Yora
2013-08-12, 04:02 AM
Murder in Baldur's Gate
Sundering Adventure I
Ed Greenwood, Matt Sernett, and Steve Winter
Blood in the Streets!

Wealth flows into the city of Baldur’s Gate like water. As the rich luxuriate in their mansions atop the bluff and artisans ply their trades on the steep streets, masses of poor laborers swell the slums. Money and power beget political scandal, religious fervor, crime . . . and murder. No one feels safe on the rain-darkened streets. Strange, foreign gods are beseeched in secret shrines. The city is rife with corruption. And through it all, the body count keeps rising.

Murder in Baldur's Gate presents the city in the time of the Sundering, a period that will define the future of the Forgotten Realms. In addition to providing 64 pages of in-depth information on the city and its inhabitants, this product includes a harrowing 32-page adventure in which the player characters defend Baldur's Gate against an ancient evil long thought slain.

Murder in Baldur's Gate allows characters to participate in important events connected to the Sundering and glimpse the future of the Forgotten Realms.
Given that Bhaal was slain at Boareskyr Bridge, which is just around the corner from Baldur's Gate, I think it's a good guess that he's the ancient evil.
Which would be cool.

Oh, and he's the god of murder, duh!

niks97cobra
2013-08-12, 05:06 AM
I like reading through the Forgotten Realms stuff. I've bought the last couple of Campaign Guides. I will never run a game in it, like someone said above, there is just too much and I don't want to be told I'm running it wrong. I prefer homebrew worlds, but I hope whatever they do to the Realms will give me plenty of stuff to pilfer for ideas.

Yora
2013-08-12, 06:03 AM
I also just noticed that the first sundering novel was released a week ago, and that Murder in Baldur's Gate will be released this weekend.
I wonder if we get some pointers to what the Sundering actually is.

hamlet
2013-08-12, 07:54 AM
I also just noticed that the first sundering novel was released a week ago, and that Murder in Baldur's Gate will be released this weekend.
I wonder if we get some pointers to what the Sundering actually is.

Duh, the Sundering is a giant marketing gimick perpetrated by the folks at Hasbor/WOTC to generate renewed interest in their zombie flagship setting rather than create something new and milk every last thin dime they can out of their sheep/customers.







Oh, you meant in world? Sorry, no idea on just what that is yet.:smallbiggrin:

Yora
2013-08-12, 09:28 AM
I am not going to use it anyway. I am just wondering what kind of style they are aiming for now. :smallbiggrin:

Calmar
2013-08-12, 11:32 AM
I now regard the Realms as a huge toolbox of great ideas and inspiration. To me it's still a wonderful setting.


Oh, gods, my condolences. I hate players like that. In many ways, they're worse than rules lawyers.
Thanks!

Roman K
2013-08-12, 11:53 AM
I also just noticed that the first sundering novel was released a week ago, and that Murder in Baldur's Gate will be released this weekend.
I wonder if we get some pointers to what the Sundering actually is.

I finished Salvatore's The Companions recently... and my conclusion?

If this book is any indication, the Sundering is basically fan-service.

And so far, I approve. If it also results in a setting that works very well as a setting, particularly as it appears that FR is going to be DnD Next's core setting, then all will be pleased.

Or most, anyways.

Sebastrd
2013-08-12, 03:04 PM
You don't want to say ''well story A'' is going on across the street...but that does not matter to my game as we are on ''story B''? I still don't get it.

Even if the Realmslore said ''Waterdeep blows up at midnight'', it is not like you have to hurry up and play before midnight. And then when midnight comes along say ''oh well guys the city blows up, guess we can't continue our game of finding the wererat king of Waterdeep.''

And your saying you like lots of hooks and suggestions...well is that not cribbing off someones ideas too? You really want the waste of space that says ''Oh the Dark Forest is full of monsters and ruins''? That is not all that.

The problem is that "story A" across the street tends to radically alter things. It's not generally something easy to ignore. Case in point, the Rotting Man has literally changed the landscape of the Great Dale and its forests with his blight.

The plot hooks in FRCS tend to be a lot more than ''Oh the Dark Forest is full of monsters and ruins''. Take Tilverton, for example. Its destruction and the gaping hole in reality left behind was really cool. That's a hook I can hang a story on. But when canon comes by and explains it all away and resolves the situation, literally tells the story itself, what is left for my PCs to do?

jedipotter
2013-08-12, 04:01 PM
The problem is that "story A" across the street tends to radically alter things. It's not generally something easy to ignore. Case in point, the Rotting Man has literally changed the landscape of the Great Dale and its forests with his blight.

The plot hooks in FRCS tend to be a lot more than ''Oh the Dark Forest is full of monsters and ruins''. Take Tilverton, for example. Its destruction and the gaping hole in reality left behind was really cool. That's a hook I can hang a story on. But when canon comes by and explains it all away and resolves the situation, literally tells the story itself, what is left for my PCs to do?

I'm like a Realms Lore Master and did not even know the Rotting Man blighted the Great Dale...hummm.

Well, the PC's can do the rest of the story. In every story, lots of people play parts. It's like when they say ''the president did something'', yea it was ''just the president'', oh and 2,000 other people.

So guess your saying you'd want every story to be frozen in the middle, until only the PC's come along to finish it. So like the the attack on Myth Drannor centuries ago, is frozen in time and no one knows what happened...until the PC's travel back in time and complete the story. You must like Ebberon.

Sebastrd
2013-08-12, 05:00 PM
I'm like a Realms Lore Master and did not even know the Rotting Man blighted the Great Dale...hummm.

Well, the PC's can do the rest of the story. In every story, lots of people play parts. It's like when they say ''the president did something'', yea it was ''just the president'', oh and 2,000 other people.

My PCs should be the heroes. Not the guys who clean up when the real heroes are done. They are not just bit players in someone else's story. During the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, who wants to be fighting at the Lonely Mountain - a place whose important story was already told?


So guess your saying you'd want every story to be frozen in the middle, until only the PC's come along to finish it. So like the the attack on Myth Drannor centuries ago, is frozen in time and no one knows what happened...until the PC's travel back in time and complete the story. You must like Ebberon.

Not at all. I'm saying when the Srinshee disappears with the Ruler's Blade and her whereabouts are one of the greatest mysteries in the Realms, it might be nice for my PCs to go looking for her. Except, oops, she's already been found hiding out in an artificial pocket dimension having tea and crumpets with Elminster and the Seven Sisters who have known where she was all along.

Craft (Cheese)
2013-08-12, 05:37 PM
You must like Ebberon.

As a matter of fact, yes.

Sebastrd
2013-08-12, 06:27 PM
It's funny you mention Eberron. You can crack wise all you want, but there's a reason you've never seen an official explanation for the Mournland and why the highest level NPCs were all in the teens.

jedipotter
2013-08-12, 08:20 PM
It's funny you mention Eberron. You can crack wise all you want, but there's a reason you've never seen an official explanation for the Mournland and why the highest level NPCs were all in the teens.


Eberron always makes me think of this sceen from Austin Powers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLlUgilKqms


Just think of all the poor, low level Eberron commoners sitting around, waiting for the PC's to show up and save them. Just replace the steamroller with say an undead army....and have the Eberron folks just standing there ''gosh hope someone shows up to save us....".

DeltaEmil
2013-08-12, 08:35 PM
As opposed to all those level 16-21 fighter bartenders and all those epic level spellcasters all just sitting around in Faerûn being all important and powerful, but not really doing anything worthwhile, who somehow need the services and help of level 1 dudes and dudettes. :smallcool:

All those faerûnian high level NPC probably actually forgot how to cleave a lowly orc horde with less than a hundred orc warriors, or how to use that fireball. After all, that was so long ago. :smalltongue:

With a new Forgotten Realms, let's see how many uber-NPC will remain, or spring out of existence standing around and doing nothing really.

tasw
2013-08-13, 12:40 AM
beh, Eberron needs to die in a fire. Steampunk has no business in D&D. Theres systems much better designed for that.

I hate the entire idea that they took the magic Xmas tree and just made a world based off of it.

And living, sissy, golems as PC's are just stupid. They need to die in that fire from the ankles up.

AuraTwilight
2013-08-13, 01:18 AM
beh, Eberron needs to die in a fire. Steampunk has no business in D&D. Theres systems much better designed for that.

There's systems better designed for sword and sorcery fantasy play, too. Steampunk has as much a place in D&D as everything else in it.


I hate the entire idea that they took the magic Xmas tree and just made a world based off of it.


I love the idea that someone noticed the consequences if in-universe magical mechanics and made an entire world based on it.


And living, sissy, golems as PC's are just stupid. They need to die in that fire from the ankles up.

no u

Seriously though, sissy in what way? Warforged fill a perfectly serviceable niche for storytelling and character-builds, are unique and original, and most importantly for a lot of people, are totally balanced.

If you don't like Eberron, don't play in it. Or, alternative, make a better setting. Eberron was made by one guy for a contest, so surely you can make something superior and just as original, right?

Craft (Cheese)
2013-08-13, 05:01 AM
I love the idea that someone noticed the consequences if in-universe magical mechanics and made an entire world based on it.

This aspect of Eberron is unpopular because a lot of people intrinsically hate the "magic mart" concept for some reason and want a setting that does away with it, where Eberron embraces it. Personally, I think there's interesting territory to be explored on both sides of the spectrum.

I mean, you might as well complain "Forgotten Realms isn't a low-level setting where nobody has ever reached 2nd level, so therefore FR sucks."

Yora
2013-08-13, 05:08 AM
Eberron is no more unusual than Dark Sun, Planescape, Ravenloft, and Spelljammer. Only Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk are really standard fantasy among the famous D&D settings.

Alleran
2013-08-13, 05:09 AM
Have you ever read Spellfire by Greenwood himself? That one still ranks as the worst thing I've ever read.
Apparently, the version of Spellfire that was published and the version that was originally written have significant differences because the editors took a hacksaw to it. Massive chunks of plot excised, entire scenes removed, that sort of thing. Even the "updated and expanded" one that came out a few years back now isn't improved because for every word added, another word had to be taken out to preserve the same word count and size.


It's funny you mention Eberron. You can crack wise all you want, but there's a reason you've never seen an official explanation for the Mournland and why the highest level NPCs were all in the teens.
IIRC, Eberron has that city down in Argonessen where the lowest-level character is something like 8th level or so, an entire ward of the city has characters around 15th level, and the highest-level character in the whole shebang is a 29th level Paladin.

(Granted, it's a Paladin and not a spellcaster, but that's a lot of levels all the same.)

Yora
2013-08-13, 05:13 AM
That probably means Eberron also has the stage where people make up stuff without understanding what the world is supposed to be like. I wonder how much damage that thing has done to Forgotten Realms.

Alleran
2013-08-13, 05:45 AM
That probably means Eberron also has the stage where people make up stuff without understanding what the world is supposed to be like.
Okay, just to make sure, I went and checked through my books to refresh my memory and make sure I wasn't imagining things. Some details:

- Dragons of Eberron book, pages 40-48.
- The city is called Io'lokar, has 46000 inhabitants total, and it's in Argonnessen.
- Notes that they are all extremely powerful, from highest to lowest. A lowly clerk in the lowest ward could be a 7th level expert and an 8th level adept (15th level overall) with enough knowledge to make the best of Khorvaire weep. Book's own words.
- They have a group of stone giant elders living within their walls (leaders are also 6th level sorcerers) to defend the place.
- Five tiers to the city. The lowest tier generally has characters of 11th level or lower (nonspellcasters are rare but generally 8th level or lower). The second tier has characters of 12th to 15th level. The third tier has characters of 16th or 17th level, and the fourth tier has characters of 18th or 19th level. The top tier has characters that are 20th level or higher. Considering they have over forty thousand people living there, that's a lot of firepower.
- Extremely powerful magical defenses throughout.
- Notable leaders of the city include Elabenna (elf diviner 19 / dragon prophet 5 / warrior 1), Honar (fighter 12 / ranger 5 / dragonrider 5), K'Naatha (elder stone giant sorcerer 8 / paladin 10), Nalyna (half-elf paladin 12 / fighter 14 / wizard 3), and Thinrukidis (gnome bard 12 / wizard 5 / seeker of the song 5).

Not all the information, but enough. So yeah. Extremely powerful and high level stuff all through that place.

Craft (Cheese)
2013-08-13, 07:10 AM
That probably means Eberron also has the stage where people make up stuff without understanding what the world is supposed to be like. I wonder how much damage that thing has done to Forgotten Realms.

I think in this case it's more assuming that the entirety of the setting is Khorvaire.

Lord Raziere
2013-08-13, 07:17 AM
This aspect of Eberron is unpopular because a lot of people intrinsically hate the "magic mart" concept for some reason and want a setting that does away with it, where Eberron embraces it. Personally, I think there's interesting territory to be explored on both sides of the spectrum.

I mean, you might as well complain "Forgotten Realms isn't a low-level setting where nobody has ever reached 2nd level, so therefore FR sucks."

I personally love Eberron, I never understood why people don't like science and magic to be together. also, I kind of wish that Eberron was a little more steampunk, it still feels kind of limited. also, someone really needs to do a better version of the artificer, preferably one thats balanced.

obryn
2013-08-13, 08:30 AM
I never understood why people don't like science and magic to be together.
I am something of a traditionalist, here, but not in the way you might think. :smallbiggrin:

Back in the earliest days of the hobby, in the early 70's, sci-fi and fantasy weren't especially distinct genres, by and large. Fantasy was just a sub-genre, so a lot of it has science and magic mixed up pretty freely. You can see this in a lot of the earliest settings, too, like the Wilderlands of High Fantasy, Blackmoor, and adventures like Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. I think that kind of stuff is just awesome, so I love throwing ray guns and crashed spaceships into my fantasy games.

I did that pretty recently in Dark Sun. The history of the Gith was basically that a bunch of Githyanki crashed in a silver spelljammer and degenerated under Athas's influence. I used that, and sci-fi'd it up a lot, throwing in (for example) grell with cybernetic implants, melting silver doors, and a spelljamming helm (still connected to a lich queen) that was more like a living computer, complete with gravity control and the ability to mold the ship's material into pits and/or spikes.

So yeah, I love that sort of stuff. Like I said, a traditionalist!

-O

Craft (Cheese)
2013-08-13, 09:10 AM
I personally love Eberron, I never understood why people don't like science and magic to be together. also, I kind of wish that Eberron was a little more steampunk, it still feels kind of limited. also, someone really needs to do a better version of the artificer, preferably one thats balanced.

You ever look into Iron Kingdoms? It's got problems but I think it improves upon several of Eberron's ideas in interesting ways.

hamlet
2013-08-13, 09:46 AM
Eberron always makes me think of this sceen from Austin Powers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLlUgilKqms


Just think of all the poor, low level Eberron commoners sitting around, waiting for the PC's to show up and save them. Just replace the steamroller with say an undead army....and have the Eberron folks just standing there ''gosh hope someone shows up to save us....".

It's not so much that as the Forgotten Realms campaign has this unnerving talent for describing the beginnings of a compelling mystery or story hook for the DM in one paragraph, and then in the next explaining it away or describing how one of the multitude of a batch of super powered NPC's has actually already solved the problem.

That's the thing, there's always a long list of problems in the Realms that have all just been solved rather than open ended hooks for the DM to detail out for the players to interract with.

It's something that the old grey box did, too, though not quite as often.


The best example of what I (at least) look for in a campaign setting in this regard is the Kalamar setting. There's stuff going on, but it's not about meta-plot. It's stuff that's quietly hinted at in the text, little hooks here and there for the DM to grab up and use as he wants, or to ignore if he wants. And there aren't any problems listed where the solution or super NPC is there too. Head over to Kenzer and Co and read the free sample of the setting that's up there still (I think) and you'll see what I mean.

Here's the link to the sample: http://www.kenzerco.com/free_files/kalamar/Kalamar_4e_preview.pdf

Essentially, this is for the 4e conversion, so just ignore the rules material. The hard copy setting has almost no rules material in it and is much stronger for it. But you can get a sense of some of what the setting is like here.

That's what I would like to see out of the Realms. That kind of setup and writing.

Yora
2013-08-13, 10:06 AM
It's not so much that as the Forgotten Realms campaign has this unnerving talent for describing the beginnings of a compelling mystery or story hook for the DM in one paragraph, and then in the next explaining it away or describing how one of the multitude of a batch of super powered NPC's has actually already solved the problem.
Really? I can't think of a single case.

hamlet
2013-08-13, 10:23 AM
Really? I can't think of a single case.

Hellgate Keep.

Sets up real nice, and then goes into explicit detail, even to the type of the head demon (Type VI if you're curious, which begs the question because the text explicitely states that the gate was opened to the Nine Hells, home of Devils) and lays out the whole thing rather than setting it up as a vague place of ominousness.

Would have been better IMO if it had just been "Hellgate Keep, once known as Ascalhorne, was an elf fortification given over to Netherese refugees to hold off Orcish depredations in the region until it was lost in the span of one night and all contact was lost. Rumors persist of prideful mages experimenting with gateways to dark places . . ."

That's a better setup. It gives the DM enough to work off of, including a link to history, but doesn't overpower their creativity with "and here's how it is."

Yora
2013-08-13, 11:38 AM
In that aspect I agree. The main reason I lost interest in Forgotten Realms was that there isn't anything to discover. With every ruin it's fairly well known who build it and what's inside it. Though I don't see high level NPCs coming into play with that.

The real issue is that D&D settings have always been written for DMs and no information about them gets released for the players. So if you want to read about what the locals now about the world, you have to read the DM books and get the answers to all the mysteries at the same time.
The old box sets at least had a general book and an explicit DM book, which somewhat helped compensating, but 3rd Edition dropped that entirely.

In a campaign setting, easily 80 to 90% of the material is stuff that player characters would be able to know and should now, if they are locals of that area. Anything that really shouldn't be known to players could easily be packed in a small GMs guide.

Roman K
2013-08-13, 01:55 PM
beh, Eberron needs to die in a fire. Steampunk has no business in D&D. Theres systems much better designed for that.

You did not just say "DnD can't have Steampunk because it isn't cool enough as an argument, right?" Because really... there's nothing about Steampunk that makes it incompatible with DnD. Or that requires a separate, specialized core system.


And living, sissy, golems as PC's are just stupid. They need to die in that fire from the ankles up.

Kindly step away from my melancholy, identity-troubled Warforged, sir! Some of the most enjoyable and engrossing characters I've played were Warforged, and I absolutely enjoyed, in a fantasy setting, the kind of self-augmentation generally reserved for Shadowrun or Star Wars RPG's droids.

Pokonic
2013-08-13, 03:11 PM
I alway's played Ebberon as a mix of pulpy action-adventure pulpy fun and pure politics, and it does it's job very, very well in that. I simply have never really managed to really enjoy FR because of it's...completeness.

In Ebberon, there's a chance that your PC's will be real major players in the world if you get into even the mid levels. FR? Sorry, kids, even if the local ruin of such and such is rampent with monsters, the local level 16 wizard nearby is doing great keeping it at bay. The next country over might be better for adventuring. Wait, no? The local nation with five full pages of backstory is currently doing fine with there extensive knightly order that might be a PrC somewhere. Well, dang, sorry kids, you could try and go into that graveyard there and-wait, nope, the book say's that a local necromancer five levels above the party is lurking in there and hasn't been delt with for whatever reason. That goblin tribe the next hill over might be a better-well, wait a moment, those goblins were all wiped out by that necromancer and made his minions, according to this sidebar here.

Lord Raziere
2013-08-13, 03:13 PM
You ever look into Iron Kingdoms? It's got problems but I think it improves upon several of Eberron's ideas in interesting ways.

thank for letting me know of this, I'll read it and see if its awesome.

Craft (Cheese)
2013-08-13, 03:28 PM
thank for letting me know of this, I'll read it and see if its awesome.

If this doesn't convince you it's awesome, nothing will. (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZIKFGnHeXGY/T3JCnVKmlKI/AAAAAAAAAvI/dmWyi-jOvGI/s640/new_Iron_Kingdoms_rpg_by_n_ossandon_nezt-d4la4gp.jpg)

hamlet
2013-08-13, 03:46 PM
Yeah, I'm forever kicking myself because I looked at it originally and wasn't thrilled with it, and then gave my copy away to somebody.

Doh!

Now they're all collector's items almost.

Lord Raziere
2013-08-13, 03:54 PM
If this doesn't convince you it's awesome, nothing will. (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZIKFGnHeXGY/T3JCnVKmlKI/AAAAAAAAAvI/dmWyi-jOvGI/s640/new_Iron_Kingdoms_rpg_by_n_ossandon_nezt-d4la4gp.jpg)

*slow-mo thumbs up, complete with sunglasses spontaneously appearing on my face when I'm done*

seems awesome to me. especially if I can dual-wield pistols.

Craft (Cheese)
2013-08-13, 04:09 PM
*slow-mo thumbs up, complete with sunglasses spontaneously appearing on my face when I'm done*

seems awesome to me. especially if I can dual-wield pistols.

You can dual-wield pistols with spells scribed onto the bullets while commanding a legion of steamjacks (those giant metal soldier dudes). Gun Mage//Warcaster. Badass trenchcoat mandatory.

Lord Raziere
2013-08-13, 04:59 PM
say no more. that is all that is needed for me.

I will bow out now, to allow you to continue whatever discussion you were having before I came in.

Felhammer
2013-08-13, 05:22 PM
beh, Eberron needs to die in a fire. Steampunk has no business in D&D. Theres systems much better designed for that.

I hate the entire idea that they took the magic Xmas tree and just made a world based off of it.

And living, sissy, golems as PC's are just stupid. They need to die in that fire from the ankles up.

Except Eberron isn't Steampunk. There is no steam in Eberron. Everything is just the logical way normal people would utilize magic.

We need soldiers: Make legions of mechanical ones -{{scrubbed}}

We need to haul freight across this vast continent: Well, let's use conductor stones and elementals to make trains!

We have wood that floats: Let's build air ships out of the wood and use bound elementals to push the ships!

We have a spell called sending: Let's bind the spell to stones to allow two-way communication.

We have teleportation magic: Let's create a network of teleportation circles to help ferry small groups of rich people around.

We have a repair spell: Let's create a company that specializes in repairing things.

We have spells that control the weather: Let's make famine a thing of the past. Also, let's make a tropical island in the far north.

We have levitation spells: Let's make sky-scraper sized towers.

There is no steam, it is all magic. Magic that can be found in the 3.5 core rule book.

If Dark Sun is the epitome of everything that could go wrong with Magic, then Eberron is the epitome of everything that magic can be when applied scientifically.

jedipotter
2013-08-13, 05:54 PM
Hellgate Keep.

Sets up real nice, and then goes into explicit detail, even to the type of the head demon (Type VI if you're curious, which begs the question because the text explicitely states that the gate was opened to the Nine Hells, home of Devils) and lays out the whole thing rather than setting it up as a vague place of ominousness.

Would have been better IMO if it had just been "Hellgate Keep, once known as Ascalhorne, was an elf fortification given over to Netherese refugees to hold off Orcish depredations in the region until it was lost in the span of one night and all contact was lost. Rumors persist of prideful mages experimenting with gateways to dark places . . ."

That's a better setup. It gives the DM enough to work off of, including a link to history, but doesn't overpower their creativity with "and here's how it is."

Oh, well I see the problem now. People are treating everything in a game book like a bunch of plot hooks. Now see the Realms is not like that. The Realms has dozens of told, done stories AND hundreds of plot hooks.

And Hellgate Keep....well it was a Plot Hook for....oh, a dozen years. All through 1E and 2E it was just a plot hook. And, yes, when 3E came out like 15 years later, the closed the story. They rightly felt that having a plot hook around for 15 years was long enough.

Craft (Cheese)
2013-08-13, 05:59 PM
Except Eberron isn't Steampunk. There is no steam in Eberron. ...

"Steampunk" is more about the aesthetics than literally "stuff powered by steam." That's why there's such a thing as steampunk cosplay.

Felhammer
2013-08-13, 06:09 PM
"Steampunk" is more about the aesthetics than literally "stuff powered by steam." That's why there's such a thing as steampunk cosplay.

I don't really see it. The Steampunk aesthetic is not that common in the art of Eberron. There aren't that many pictures with people with steam bobbles attached to their clothing. Eberron is far too medieval for true steampunk.

russdm
2013-08-13, 06:57 PM
I frankly wish they (wotc) would retcon FR back to when Kelemvor back god of death and Cyric went sane again after his dang book. Then they could prune the deities and remove most of the realms changing/shaking events in the novels from the official canon and stick that garbage into a chapter called "Alternate Canon" from which you can cherry pick what events you want to have happened.

It would leave more things open because most 3rd/3.5 splatbooks for FR had the novels added in as fluff which rendered huge sections of plot hooks unavailable.

example:

Create a goblin army to invade the dalelands. oh, wait, elminister lives there. Nevermind, gobbos.

Did anyone seriously believe the writers' bs about choosing things out in the fr corebook as a DM when they have the metaplot listed for you and they use novel fluff as game fluff?

I didn't believe it. Why should i have to go through and remove fluff to make my adventures work instead being able to add the fluff in? Dark Sun lets me put in my own fluff with no trouble. Even the Star wars game systems allow me to put in stuff for my players without worrying about stepping on canon toes.

Yet, i can't do this is Faerun without serious modifications because fluff in spot affects fluff in other spots.

NoldorForce
2013-08-13, 06:58 PM
Oh, well I see the problem now. People are treating everything in a game book like a bunch of plot hooks. Now see the Realms is not like that. The Realms has dozens of told, done stories AND hundreds of plot hooks.

And Hellgate Keep....well it was a Plot Hook for....oh, a dozen years. All through 1E and 2E it was just a plot hook. And, yes, when 3E came out like 15 years later, the closed the story. They rightly felt that having a plot hook around for 15 years was long enough.The problem with closing stories off is that it's basically narrative tourism. Sure, it looks pretty, but that's all it does. It's cool to read about but not to play.

With both the novel and the TRPG we're trying to establish conflict (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_(narrative)), tension, and doubt in the narrative. However, the two are crafted in different ways. Think of the novel (or any other prose piece) like a sculpture; it's painstakingly carved until you get to one finished product. It might be admired from multiple angles but is ultimately fixed in nature. TRPG stories, in contrast, are not made to be "finished products", but instead unfold in real-time. Think of them more like a thicket of vines creeping up a high wall, or like cellular automata (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_automaton); the process is everything.

You're criticizing the "vague plot hook" approach by looking at it from the wrong direction. Interesting people (the PCs) don't make interesting stories; rather, interesting stories make interesting people.

Craft (Cheese)
2013-08-13, 07:38 PM
I don't really see it. The Steampunk aesthetic is not that common in the art of Eberron. There aren't that many pictures with people with steam bobbles attached to their clothing. Eberron is far too medieval for true steampunk.

The steampunk influences are subtle, yes, but they're there: The most blatant example is in the lightning rails. Iron Kingdoms does the steampunk thing much more overtly.

hamlet
2013-08-13, 08:23 PM
Oh, well I see the problem now. People are treating everything in a game book like a bunch of plot hooks. Now see the Realms is not like that. The Realms has dozens of told, done stories AND hundreds of plot hooks.

And Hellgate Keep....well it was a Plot Hook for....oh, a dozen years. All through 1E and 2E it was just a plot hook. And, yes, when 3E came out like 15 years later, the closed the story. They rightly felt that having a plot hook around for 15 years was long enough.

Nope, that version of Hellgate keep is right out of the 1st edition printing of the Realms. It's the first time it appears in print. The whole thing is explained flat out.

jedipotter
2013-08-13, 09:35 PM
Nope, that version of Hellgate keep is right out of the 1st edition printing of the Realms. It's the first time it appears in print. The whole thing is explained flat out.

Right, Hellgate Keep was around from the start and went through all of 1E and most of 2E being a plot hook. It was a problem to take care of. The keep and the demons are not taken care of until late 2E, 3E.

Alleran
2013-08-13, 09:39 PM
Create a goblin army to invade the dalelands. oh, wait, elminister lives there. Nevermind, gobbos.
Based on Elminster's reaction to the Tuigan horde (i.e. "go deal with it yourself and stop bothering me, I'm busy") that was likely to overrun the Moonsea and then Cormyr before Azoun gathered an army to stop it... I don't think it's all that difficult for somebody to handwave that Elminster is busy. Or off-plane. I'm reminded of something I read once in the Baldur's Gate game books about Shadowdale (which were pretty much lifted straight from sourcebooks):

"The nature of that retirement [to Shadowdale] varies from active involvement in local affairs to long-term vacations on other planes. The natives of the Dale have come to understanding that they cannot always count on the powerful mage being in residence in times of need and danger, but when he is present in these circumstances his aid is usually given."

It's entirely possible that a goblin army could descend on Shadowdale, and Elminster would simply not be there. Granted, Shadowdale has other things hanging around as well a lot of the time (e.g. the Knights of Myth Drannor), but Elminster, at least, is not to be relied upon all the time.

Flickerdart
2013-08-13, 11:51 PM
Elminster won't be busy forever, though. Once he gets back from his business trip, he can wipe out the invasion easily.

Raenir Salazar
2013-08-14, 12:37 AM
I want to see Gromph Baenre kick Elminsters ass in a spell duel and drink tea afterwards.

Wait. I think that's Touhou...

God damnit Yukari!

Felhammer
2013-08-14, 12:43 AM
I've never really understood the complaint that PCs in FR don't matter because there are so many high level characters running around.

1. You are playing in another person's sandbox so your characters will NEVER matter outside of your game and you experience. This is true of Eberron, Dark Sun, FR and every other setting ever published. You can't expect WotC to take your character and plug him into the official world. Your character is only meaningful in the campaign in which he was played.

2. High level characters cannot be every where at once.

3. High level characters don't really care about low level threats because they know there are throngs of adventurers out there to handle it.

4. Many good high level characters are countered by evil high level characters (and vice versa).

5. The PCs in your campaign ARE the heroes of the story. Even inexperienced high level characters will recognize the fact that "someone is solving problem X" and thus not interfere for fear of altering the PC's plans.

6. High level characters exist in the game and you CAN interact with them. Meeting Elminster or Drizzt and having them help you in some way is actually pretty cool and can be quite fun.

7. Even if Problem Y is solved by High Level Character Z in an official story, that doesn't mean that it happened in YOUR FR Campaign.


The steampunk influences are subtle, yes, but they're there: The most blatant example is in the lightning rails. Iron Kingdoms does the steampunk thing much more overtly.

Call it Steampunk if you want but it really isn't. The classic Victorian-Era aesthetic isn't really that present (clothing is much more akin to the Age of Discovery and weapons/armor are clearly medieval). The Lightning Rails and other supposed steam punk elements are easily deducible when one looks at all the 3.5 spells of 3rd level or lower (which are supposed to be extraordinarily common in Eberron). Steampunk is probably the closest analogy to describe the feel of Eberron but it is far from correct.

Raenir Salazar
2013-08-14, 12:50 AM
For me, there's a distinct canon and its a world and setting that I love and the characters within it. As a DM it wouldn't be my first choice because I don't want to step on the toes as to what I consider to be canon, even if we fast forwarded to the future or went to some middle of no where backwater no one has heard of.

That and if we did interact with the famous ones I don't really trust most people to "get" the characters and properly act like them. Like this one time on an Baldur's Gate PW Server and a DM brought out Artemis and Jaraxle, they didn't sound like them really and of course one of the PC's wanted to pick a fight with Artemis when the game doesn't model that sort of thing well...

niks97cobra
2013-08-14, 01:15 AM
Except Eberron isn't Steampunk. There is no steam in Eberron. Everything is just the logical way normal people would utilize magic.

We need soldiers: Make legions of mechanical ones (i.e. what the US government is trying to do right now).

We need to haul freight across this vast continent: Well, let's use conductor stones and elementals to make trains!

We have wood that floats: Let's build air ships out of the wood and use bound elementals to push the ships!

We have a spell called sending: Let's bind the spell to stones to allow two-way communication.

We have teleportation magic: Let's create a network of teleportation circles to help ferry small groups of rich people around.

We have a repair spell: Let's create a company that specializes in repairing things.

We have spells that control the weather: Let's make famine a thing of the past. Also, let's make a tropical island in the far north.

We have levitation spells: Let's make sky-scraper sized towers.

There is no steam, it is all magic. Magic that can be found in the 3.5 core rule book.

If Dark Sun is the epitome of everything that could go wrong with Magic, then Eberron is the epitome of everything that magic can be when applied scientifically.

Very well put. Makes me wish I had the Eberron book just to look at right now.

AuraTwilight
2013-08-14, 01:55 AM
1. You are playing in another person's sandbox so your characters will NEVER matter outside of your game and you experience. This is true of Eberron, Dark Sun, FR and every other setting ever published. You can't expect WotC to take your character and plug him into the official world. Your character is only meaningful in the campaign in which he was played.

2. High level characters cannot be every where at once.

3. High level characters don't really care about low level threats because they know there are throngs of adventurers out there to handle it.

4. Many good high level characters are countered by evil high level characters (and vice versa).

5. The PCs in your campaign ARE the heroes of the story. Even inexperienced high level characters will recognize the fact that "someone is solving problem X" and thus not interfere for fear of altering the PC's plans.

6. High level characters exist in the game and you CAN interact with them. Meeting Elminster or Drizzt and having them help you in some way is actually pretty cool and can be quite fun.

7. Even if Problem Y is solved by High Level Character Z in an official story, that doesn't mean that it happened in YOUR FR Campaign.

1. Then don't have those NPCs fix problems, leave them open and if you must progress the metaplot, have it be a 'keeps getting worse' thing. See: Exalted.

2. They can be if there's multiple of them. :P

3. Okay cool but what if my low-level adventurers level up? There's already all these high level people around the place. Do we just sit around and contribute to the status quo? Do we upset it and piss everyone off? You can't really oppose Elminster in any meaningful way because whatever you try to do he's basically been doing longer and better.

4. So when my characters become high level they'll be in a permanent dead lock with evil characters to preserve the status quo, then.

5. If these new guys are solving problems they just discovered, why the hell weren't they solved long ago? You basically turn the setting into "Everyone who was above level 12 in this setting was cripplingly head-in-ass until these guys showed up."

6. Oh cool, thanks, a super epic-level character just swooped in and took care of the problem and totally stole the spotlight. Thanks. That's what players want to happen. Look, either have the high-level canon sues be involved or have them be completely removed from problems. You can't have it both ways.

7. So then why do I need the metaplot at all? Why am I paying for it? Can I get a copy of the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting books with no metaplot in them? No? Then cool, I'm paying money for crap I can't/won't use, and the more the metaplot develops the more the setting will diverge and be removed from MY interpretation of the setting meaning that there's less and less of the books I'll be able to make use of, eventually meaning I'll have to stop buyign them altogether.

Great marketing strategy.

Alleran
2013-08-14, 02:44 AM
Elminster won't be busy forever, though. Once he gets back from his business trip, he can wipe out the invasion easily.
Sure, he can deal with it when he gets back, but how long is that going to take? He might be gone for months at a time, if not years (I seem to remember one FR book that actually had Manshoon surprised to see Elminster because the latter been off-plane so much in recent history), and during that period hundreds if not thousands of people could die. To me that seems like absolutely the sort of thing that the PCs should want to stop. They can wait around for Elminster to do something about it (if he has reason to) when he gets back (if he gets back) and live with hundreds of innocent deaths, or they can fix the problem now.

In general, Elminster, and other high(er)-level characters, have their own things to do, whether that's research and teaching (especially for Chosen, since their entire job is to promote and encourage the spread of magic by whatever means necessary; there's one Chosen down in Halruaa whose entire job is going to other planes and finding cool new spells), generally living their life (eating, sleeping for non-Chosen, keeping up with friends/family, that sort of thing), their own CR-appropriate adventuring if they still do it (possibly going off-plane), or just going to some quiet out of the way beach for a spot of fishing because they need a holiday from all the silly young fools begging for them to solve all their problems for them. They don't run around putting out every fire before it can get started. If their interests are aimed at somewhere in particular, they might not even notice a fire halfway around the world until after it's burned down the forest. They aren't omniscient, and nor are they player-character murderhobos who live for their quota of CR-appropriate encounters per day.

Morty
2013-08-14, 05:56 AM
That probably means Eberron also has the stage where people make up stuff without understanding what the world is supposed to be like. I wonder how much damage that thing has done to Forgotten Realms.

I would say it has done a lot. I think that much of the infamous bloat of high-level characters in the Forgotten Realms comes from the writers' simply not understanding the capabilities of such people. Hence placing level 17 wizards, fighters or clerics willy-nilly, in places where it really doesn't make much sense for such powerhouses to be residing.

hamlet
2013-08-14, 09:40 AM
Right, Hellgate Keep was around from the start and went through all of 1E and most of 2E being a plot hook. It was a problem to take care of. The keep and the demons are not taken care of until late 2E, 3E.

You're misunderstanding me. I understand what it was.

I'm saying I don't want that much detail written out for it. I don't want the author of the setting to write it up just shy of being an adventure module. I want something like I wrote up thread, something that provides a spark for imagination of the DM and lets him create something of his own within the world.

Too much detail is a bad thing.

Craft (Cheese)
2013-08-14, 11:58 AM
I've never really understood the complaint that PCs in FR don't matter because there are so many high level characters running around.

1. You are playing in another person's sandbox so your characters will NEVER matter outside of your game and you experience. This is true of Eberron, Dark Sun, FR and every other setting ever published. You can't expect WotC to take your character and plug him into the official world. Your character is only meaningful in the campaign in which he was played.

I only partially agree with this: It's true that your characters don't have any agency outside of the campaign you're currently playing, but that's true of homebrew settings and published settings alike. The DM can be a jerk and wreck player agency in any setting, but a published setting can make it harder for the DM to avoid doing this without breaking verisimilitude.


2. High level characters cannot be every where at once.

Actually, yeah, they sorta can. Especially with epic magic.


3. High level characters don't really care about low level threats because they know there are throngs of adventurers out there to handle it.

And what if the campaign is about a high level threat?


4. Many good high level characters are countered by evil high level characters (and vice versa).

This is just a stupid rationalization. You can say "Elminster isn't doing this because he's countered by this evil guy" but then you have to come up with why the evil guy means Elminster can't tackle the problem (but the PCs can). And even if Elminster's work would inevitably just be undone by the evil guy there's such a thing as a temporary victory and there's no reason for the forces of good to not try to work for them regardless.


5. The PCs in your campaign ARE the heroes of the story. Even inexperienced high level characters will recognize the fact that "someone is solving problem X" and thus not interfere for fear of altering the PC's plans.

Why? Sportsmanship?


6. High level characters exist in the game and you CAN interact with them. Meeting Elminster or Drizzt and having them help you in some way is actually pretty cool and can be quite fun.

Oh god, that's even worse than just having them sitting around in the background.


7. Even if Problem Y is solved by High Level Character Z in an official story, that doesn't mean that it happened in YOUR FR Campaign.

Oberoni Fallacy: "It's not broken because I can fix it!" We run games in published settings specifically to save ourselves effort. If the setting needs extensive rewrites and revisions to be usable for the type of game we want to play, we're better off not using it.

Yora
2013-08-14, 12:07 PM
The problem with high level NPCs is that some people seem to expect that their characters should be saving the world, but don't want them to be 20th level while doing that.

If the characters are 3rd level, they should be doing 3rd level stuff.
If the characters are 10th level, they should be doing 10th level stuff.
And if the characters are 23rd level, they should be doing 23rd level stuff.

And why do the 23rd level characters not go around doing the 3rd level stuff? Because they have to spend their time dealing with those 23rd level problem, and there is also a huge number of 3rd level problems.

If a thief steals an old ladies handbag, you don't call in the special forces. Local police can handle that very well on their own and the special forces soldiers have to be ready for when the is something that requires their attention.

I really don't see the problem with a setting in which a small number of very high level characters exist. That's like complaining that the real world is unsuitable to adventures in which the PCs search for a fugitive in the jungles of Brazil, because the entire US Army could obliterate the whole place.

Roman K
2013-08-14, 01:59 PM
The problem with high level NPCs is that some people seem to expect that their characters should be saving the world, but don't want them to be 20th level while doing that.

...

I really don't see the problem with a setting in which a small number of very high level characters exist. That's like complaining that the real world is unsuitable to adventures in which the PCs search for a fugitive in the jungles of Brazil, because the entire US Army could obliterate the whole place.

I concur. FR's high-level NPC's, from my reading of the setting sourcebooks and novels, are either involved in very high-level events or plain personal concerns.

Gromph Baenre is the most powerful wizard in Menzoberranzan, and possible the most powerful archwizard in the Realms - and yet he seems to focus almost entirely on magic, foiling attempts to manipulate or attack him, and the occasional local politics. He's aloof and extremely remote.

Drizzt seems to wander between small-scale events and the occasional short, high-level major encounters. His wanderings, however, are entirely driven by personal concerns and local events - he doesn't go around solving the problems of the whole world. He doesn't even know about most of them, and is driven by companionship and his immediate communities more often than not.

Elminster? The early Elminster of 4e was a broken man, nursing what little sanity he and the near-insane Simbul had left. Ironically enough, he's listed as more adventurous at this period of time, but even then... his adventures range from utterly epic-level to the pathetically personal affair of stealing old magical items for the Simbul to consume.

Khelben Blackstaff? Dead.

And on the villain side... Szass Tam? One lich. One major lich, but one with multiple plots and plotlines. The books that detailed his takeover of Thay and the resulting focus of Tam on Dread Rings and the like... the actually added a vast number of plot hooks.

In short, the high-tier NPC's of Forgotten Realms do not remove the veracity of the setting for other adventures and other campaigns. The Realms are big and wide enough to have them and a large number of other events going on. They can be used as quest-givers, remote characters in the background, random encounters for flavor... or not at all.

Yes, as amazing as it may sound, you can walk around in the Forgotten Realms without bumping into a character beyond level 20, a Chosen or some deity, or the deity itself.

tasw
2013-08-14, 02:47 PM
Kindly step away from my melancholy, identity-troubled Warforged, sir! Some of the most enjoyable and engrossing characters I've played were Warforged, and I absolutely enjoyed, in a fantasy setting, the kind of self-augmentation generally reserved for Shadowrun or Star Wars RPG's droids.

He's a robot. Take out the melancholy chip. He'll be fine.


Except Eberron isn't Steampunk. There is no steam in Eberron.

OMG. What happens when you boil water ? Quick consult the guide.

Flickerdart
2013-08-14, 03:10 PM
OMG. What happens when you boil water ? Quick consult the guide.
The water elementals beat up the fire elementals.

AuraTwilight
2013-08-14, 03:50 PM
He's a robot. Take out the melancholy chip. He'll be fine.

There's no such thing as a melancholy chip. [Insert Robot Here] is an emergent black box artificial consciousness that cannot be mechanically tapped with. Pulling out pieces of his brain will lobotomize him the same way ripping out parts of a human's brain will.

Also Warforged specifically seem to have souls.

russdm
2013-08-14, 05:37 PM
I've never really understood the complaint that PCs in FR don't matter because there are so many high level characters running around.

1. You are playing in another person's sandbox so your characters will NEVER matter outside of your game and you experience. This is true of Eberron, Dark Sun, FR and every other setting ever published. You can't expect WotC to take your character and plug him into the official world. Your character is only meaningful in the campaign in which he was played.

Yes, but TSR and WOTC both added in all of the characters from the novels into the fluff and splat-books without bothering to leave room for characters to shine and grow without making the DM go through hoops.



2. High level characters cannot be every where at once.

They have access to magic that lets them actually do this, so is there no reason other than DM hassle for why they are not there.



3. High level characters don't really care about low level threats because they know there are throngs of adventurers out there to handle it.

This is meta-game thinking which those NPCs are not likely to consider. Also, it is unwise to leave something to be handled by a group of PCs that end up being unable to fix the problem. Assuming some group of adventurers will deal with the problem is completely meta-gaming it.



4. Many good high level characters are countered by evil high level characters (and vice versa).

This is solely drawn from the meta-plot. There is no reason for this to even have to occur since it is possible for the high level good characters to get rid of the evil ones. The only thing stopping them is an idiot ball induced meta-plot that is crappy. Also, the whole meta-plot is designed to all for novels to be sold.



5. The PCs in your campaign ARE the heroes of the story. Even inexperienced high level characters will recognize the fact that "someone is solving problem X" and thus not interfere for fear of altering the PC's plans.

There is no reason why higher level characters should care about altering the PCs' plans. Why rely on some weaklings to solve a problem that you can handle yourself a lot better? Again, this is a problem caused by the meta-plot.



6. High level characters exist in the game and you CAN interact with them. Meeting Elminster or Drizzt and having them help you in some way is actually pretty cool and can be quite fun.

Meeting a lot of high level characters would make me more likely as a player to wonder why if they are so numerous or frequently encountered they have not dealt with the problem. I think that too as a DM when reading about the half dozen or so potent high level mages in some region and supposedly some group is causing trouble. How things work in story don't work in games.



7. Even if Problem Y is solved by High Level Character Z in an official story, that doesn't mean that it happened in YOUR FR Campaign.

The official story used in the campaign is drawn from the fluff, meaning if it that high level character Z solved problem y in fluff, you cannot change it without removing that fluff. When that fluff is tied to fluff in other regions/areas, then you have to modify that fluff and so on.

Having to run through hoops to make adventures possible is a hassle for DMs who usually want to be able to run stuff easily. Having to seriously modify the fluff and do something with the NPCs so the PCs can be center stage is frequently more work than it is worth.

Faerun is not treated like the real world. For an example, there would be small teams of the us army lurking around in several of the villages being able to support nearby villages and equipped with gear that could find your fugitive if those teams bothered to do so. This would not be the case in the real world, but that's usually how FR treats its NPCs.

The meta-plot is essentially that the high end NPCs are busy doing things. It only works because every NPC has essentially been given the idiot ball. There are too many cases where the NPCs are put into available positions to make things happen.

The FR is trying to use the whole Jedi VS Sith system from star wars before darth bane remade the sith (where a group of weaker sith would replace a stronger one, weakening the sith with the whole another evil rises to replace the removed one), but it fails because there is nothing preventing the good npcs from steam-rolling over the evil ones other than the goodies inability to actually work together or be willing to permanently remove evil doers. It would take almost nothing to pull it off.

Just a get a bunch of near epic good dragons and have them all have anti-magic auras/fields up. They then smash the crap out of the evil side's mage support and the other high end good npcs mope up. The group takes out the evil doers based somewhat around power level and threat level and you get to watch the fireworks. I mean, none of the evil doers in FR are actually united in any way so they will end up being easy pickings. Just buy off or make some deal with powerful evil dragons to make it happen because those dragons wouldn't care if any of their rivals or enemies get taken out.

Can anyone actually come up with a reason why this wouldn't work if either side tried to make it happen? Those reasons cannot be based around meta-gaming it (ie, elminister would not bother with something below his level), relying on the meta-plot of there being just as potent dudes to oppose elminister, or because of the deities. I want in-game/in-world reasons that are based around how the NPCs actually act and behave, not interpretations drawn from the fact that it is a game.

Alleran
2013-08-15, 12:03 AM
Actually, yeah, they sorta can. Especially with epic magic.
Actually, no, they can't, or at least not with epic magic. Well, most of them can't. This is for the very simple reason that only one of the (statted) Chosen of Mystra actually has Epic Spellcasting, and it isn't Elminster.

Yes, I find it hilariously funny.

(Szass and Manshoon don't have it either, for the record.)

jedipotter
2013-08-15, 12:30 AM
You're misunderstanding me. I understand what it was.

I'm saying I don't want that much detail written out for it. I don't want the author of the setting to write it up just shy of being an adventure module. I want something like I wrote up thread, something that provides a spark for imagination of the DM and lets him create something of his own within the world.

Too much detail is a bad thing.

Like I said, the Realms has both. And for every story told, there are three left untold. Most Realms books are full of little stories like ''something is happening there''. And many of them have not been done ''officially''.

And the Realms are Huge! Bigger then all the tiny ''middle earth'' settings. Know how long it takes to find a place with a light description? Couple seconds. Huge areas of land and whole countries have gotten little more then a couple paragraphs in years. So you could set your game there and not worry about stuff elsewhere.

RustyArmor
2013-08-15, 01:02 AM
Funny thing is nearly all the FR super npcs people keep talking about were so badly built an average PC half their level can kick their butt for most part.

But my two cents in all it was they were there just so PCs don't become "Burn all the villages and murder everyone we see because we are 5th level and unkillable!!!" mind set.

Lord Raziere
2013-08-15, 01:30 AM
Personally, I would just solve the Elminster problem by saying that the Elminster books are a parallel universe, and that in my game, Elminster is just an ordinary non-magical scholar.

everything else would be the same, its just that Elminster is a mundane scholar and therefore can only help you by giving you some information he nows.

Felhammer
2013-08-15, 01:40 AM
1. Then don't have those NPCs fix problems, leave them open and if you must progress the metaplot, have it be a 'keeps getting worse' thing. See: Exalted.

2. They can be if there's multiple of them. :P

3. Okay cool but what if my low-level adventurers level up? There's already all these high level people around the place. Do we just sit around and contribute to the status quo? Do we upset it and piss everyone off? You can't really oppose Elminster in any meaningful way because whatever you try to do he's basically been doing longer and better.

4. So when my characters become high level they'll be in a permanent dead lock with evil characters to preserve the status quo, then.

5. If these new guys are solving problems they just discovered, why the hell weren't they solved long ago? You basically turn the setting into "Everyone who was above level 12 in this setting was cripplingly head-in-ass until these guys showed up."

6. Oh cool, thanks, a super epic-level character just swooped in and took care of the problem and totally stole the spotlight. Thanks. That's what players want to happen. Look, either have the high-level canon sues be involved or have them be completely removed from problems. You can't have it both ways.

7. So then why do I need the metaplot at all? Why am I paying for it? Can I get a copy of the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting books with no metaplot in them? No? Then cool, I'm paying money for crap I can't/won't use, and the more the metaplot develops the more the setting will diverge and be removed from MY interpretation of the setting meaning that there's less and less of the books I'll be able to make use of, eventually meaning I'll have to stop buyign them altogether.

Great marketing strategy.

1. The FR novels generate more money than the campaign setting books. FR will always have the big named characters involved in the metaplots. 'Tis the nature of the beast. There are plenty of settings where this is not the case (Eberron, Dark Sun, etc.).

2. But that's true of anything, really. :)

3. Depends on what you are doing for your adventure. You probably do upset the apple cart and involve yourselves in the politics of the world. Remember, the standard trope of fantasy is that a BBEG will never attack you directly, he will send minions of roughly equal level to deal with you, thus giving you a chance to survive. Elminster has to deal with a continent's worth of upstarts like you (even high level characters are upstarts compared to Elminster). Whose to say you oppose him or he will actively oppose you? Sure if you're running an evil campaign that could be an issue but, let's be honest, the game is premised on good/neutral PCs, not evil ones. Even if you are evil, you just need to find someone to help protect you, even if it is the mere threat of drawing such a dark being into the conflict.

4. Character upset the apple cart. The established goodies and baddies are opposed by one another on a grand scale. Neither side really makes a lot of headway. That's why brave adventurers are needed - to change up the status quo.

5. Maybe the problem is new? Maybe no one has had the time to deal with the problem? Maybe there's a great debate occurring off screen as to how to deal with the problem? There are a thousand reasons, pick one.

6. Way to go to the extreme. Helping can be as simple as giving the PCs a clue, giving them a scroll they need, directing them towards where they need to go, etc. Not everything has to be "BOOM! Eliminster up in da house!!! Time Stop, Fireball, Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Dominate Monster, Meteor Swarm! Eliminster out!"

7. The metaplot is ever evolving. It is your choice to add evolving metaplot details to your campaign. I played years and years of campaigns set in FR with only the FRCS being the canonical source of information. It's your campaign, truly make it your own.


I only partially agree with this: It's true that your characters don't have any agency outside of the campaign you're currently playing, but that's true of homebrew settings and published settings alike. The DM can be a jerk and wreck player agency in any setting, but a published setting can make it harder for the DM to avoid doing this without breaking verisimilitude.



Actually, yeah, they sorta can. Especially with epic magic.



And what if the campaign is about a high level threat?



This is just a stupid rationalization. You can say "Elminster isn't doing this because he's countered by this evil guy" but then you have to come up with why the evil guy means Elminster can't tackle the problem (but the PCs can). And even if Elminster's work would inevitably just be undone by the evil guy there's such a thing as a temporary victory and there's no reason for the forces of good to not try to work for them regardless.



Why? Sportsmanship?



Oh god, that's even worse than just having them sitting around in the background.



Oberoni Fallacy: "It's not broken because I can fix it!" We run games in published settings specifically to save ourselves effort. If the setting needs extensive rewrites and revisions to be usable for the type of game we want to play, we're better off not using it.

1. I agree. It's all up to the DM to make his campaign feel real. It can be more work but on the other hand it can also be far more rewarding.

2. Even with epic magic they cannot be everywhere at once every day of the year. The Epic level caster's enemies would exploit this fact and wreck face.

3. Then you are upsetting the apple cart and it is up to the DM to find the answers for the questions that will inevitably be asked. There are a plethora of forums out there that can lend a hand in answering such questions. It's an over-broad point with over-broad answer, sadly.

4. Temporary victories are pointless if they will just be undone. If you meddle too much, eventually you will raise the ire of many different enemies who could all work together to defeat you (even if you are Emlinster). You have to pick and choose your battles. A lot of the time that means fighting via proxy by allowing other people to wage the war you want to fight even if your proxies are unaware of your motivations.

5. Because they have other things they could be doing, the world is a big dark place full of evil after all.

6. How is it any different than meeting a King? It's no different, they're just high level NPCs.

7. Who said anything about extensive re-writes? I played a bunch of campaigns where the only canonical source of information for the game was the FRCS. The metaplot need never advance beyond what is printed in the campaign guide. If you do evolve the metaplot, then you are doing so willingly and understand the issues that can and do arise from that.

AuraTwilight
2013-08-15, 03:29 AM
1. The FR novels generate more money than the campaign setting books. FR will always have the big named characters involved in the metaplots. 'Tis the nature of the beast. There are plenty of settings where this is not the case (Eberron, Dark Sun, etc.).


Then Forgotten Realms the RPG setting is a waste of everyone's time.




3. Depends on what you are doing for your adventure. You probably do upset the apple cart and involve yourselves in the politics of the world. Remember, the standard trope of fantasy is that a BBEG will never attack you directly, he will send minions of roughly equal level to deal with you, thus giving you a chance to survive. Elminster has to deal with a continent's worth of upstarts like you (even high level characters are upstarts compared to Elminster). Whose to say you oppose him or he will actively oppose you? Sure if you're running an evil campaign that could be an issue but, let's be honest, the game is premised on good/neutral PCs, not evil ones. Even if you are evil, you just need to find someone to help protect you, even if it is the mere threat of drawing such a dark being into the conflict.

So basically the Sorting Algorithm of Evil is the only reason my PCs can reasonably survive long enough to be relevant: The villain is incompetent instead of something more organic like being an antagonist that grows with the party and has a personal investment in why he opposes them so much.



4. Character upset the apple cart. The established goodies and baddies are opposed by one another on a grand scale. Neither side really makes a lot of headway. That's why brave adventurers are needed - to change up the status quo.

But why is this only happening now? Are there exactly the same amount of Good and Evil big guys Krynn-style?



6. Way to go to the extreme. Helping can be as simple as giving the PCs a clue, giving them a scroll they need, directing them towards where they need to go, etc. Not everything has to be "BOOM! Eliminster up in da house!!! Time Stop, Fireball, Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Dominate Monster, Meteor Swarm! Eliminster out!"

Not even what I was getting at. "Hey, already did a huge part of the research for you." "Hey, I got some excess level-appropriate magic items, here lol" "Hey, this was a cinematic attack after you technically won the boss fight and I prevented it to make a cool entrance and save you in a scripted way."

It doesn't have to be extreme. Use the NPCs and you'll always be reminding players that their actions only matter because the NPCs are artificially limited by plot contrivance and busywork.



7. The metaplot is ever evolving. It is your choice to add evolving metaplot details to your campaign. I played years and years of campaigns set in FR with only the FRCS being the canonical source of information. It's your campaign, truly make it your own.

This doesn't even address my point. I'm still buying books, and those books will contain heaps of metaplot that may be utterly irrelevant if I want to be in-continuity with a previous session of mine. It's like with Old World of Darkness books when NPCs kept changing things up and becoming uberly important in the Metaplot enough to change game mechanics and oh **** the party killed him off in a previous campaign before White Wolf made him important oops.

Guess I can't use this book then, or my group has to reboot the entire damn campaign world.


4. Temporary victories are pointless if they will just be undone.

I'm sorry, I know this isn't directed at me, but for a Good person, this is complete bull.

A temporary victory still means lives saved. When the universe says "This doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things," the forces of Good point to the Commoner who will have even just ten extra years with his wife and say "It matters to them."



6. How is it any different than meeting a King? It's no different, they're just high level NPCs.


Kings aren't usually high-level NPCs who've beaten up demon lords before breakfast and only rely on the PCs because "they're too busy/important/special/this is beneath them lol"

All the "they're off doing bigger things" arguments mean is "This problem isn't really all that big a deal. It doesn't matter enough for the real heroes to give a damn."



7. Who said anything about extensive re-writes? I played a bunch of campaigns where the only canonical source of information for the game was the FRCS. The metaplot need never advance beyond what is printed in the campaign guide. If you do evolve the metaplot, then you are doing so willingly and understand the issues that can and do arise from that.

Except game content necessarily advances metaplot in Forgotten Realms. Want to use Shadow Weave? Screw you, you got to take this setting baggage.

Yora
2013-08-15, 03:34 AM
Personally, I would just solve the Elminster problem by saying that the Elminster books are a parallel universe, and that in my game, Elminster is just an ordinary non-magical scholar.

everything else would be the same, its just that Elminster is a mundane scholar and therefore can only help you by giving you some information he nows.
Paralel universe implies it is still happening somewhere. I prefer alternate continuity. :smallamused:

DeltaEmil
2013-08-15, 06:50 AM
Funny thing is nearly all the FR super npcs people keep talking about were so badly built an average PC half their level can kick their butt for most part.

But my two cents in all it was they were there just so PCs don't become "Burn all the villages and murder everyone we see because we are 5th level and unkillable!!!" mind set.The Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting came out before the Epic Level Handbook. The "epic" characters from the FRCS were built on an old and outdated idea that epic characters can only have up to 20 levels in a class, and the epic level progression of a class beyond level 20 wasn't formalized yet.

The "epic" characters in the FRCS however were absolutely intended to be capable of kicking the butts of any uppity player character and keep them down.

Of course, new rules, new splatbooks, new options and whatnot leads to the creation of Pun-Pun, incantatrixes with bajillion buffs, archivists and erudites that know all spells there are, wizards that use a specific spell-combo to annihilate entire kingdoms, necromancer clerics creating the shadowpocalypse and the wightdämmerung or the wraithreckoning to turn the entire world into a horrible apocalyptic place, ubercharger-pouncebarians slaying anything in their path, diplomancer-bards, exemplar-basketwavers or -jumplomancers talking, weaving, or jumping their way to victory and making deities into their fanatical followers, solar-chaingatting to actually create epic spells with no relevant backlash in a fraction of the time of what was intended and making a joke out of all the published epic spells, and other bajillion stuff that makes those FRCS "epic" NPCs look like a sad joke.

Scots Dragon
2013-08-15, 07:17 AM
Also, these characters weren't originally built in 3e, which is why I get pissed off any time someone brings up the topic of 'builds'. They were simply poorly adapted to the system, nothing more and nothing less.

Regardless, Elminster the Chosen of Mystra should not be disrupting your campaign; his best uses are 'quest-giver', 'hint at a future plotline that your heroes might have to deal with', or 'not at all'.

The first and third are self explanatory, but the second can work as such;
Your relatively low level heroes are dealing with something, but see hints of a bigger thing that Elminster is involved with. This is just minor stuff and rumours for the most part.
Continue this until the heroes get to the level you want them at, and then reveal this big epic plotline that Elminster needs you to help solve, because he cannot do it alone because of [reasons], and your party is the only one that can help because of [other reasons]. Thus shifting it into quest-giver location.

If you can't figure out how to make the Realms work without Elminster screwing your campaign up, you're doing it wrong.

Raenir Salazar
2013-08-15, 10:14 AM
Also, these characters weren't originally built in 3e, which is why I get pissed off any time someone brings up the topic of 'builds'. They were simply poorly adapted to the system, nothing more and nothing less.


This gets a chuckle out of me as I've multiple times dealth with people who refused to believe an optimized level 20 wizard could "beat" Elminster or similar epics. I even took one dude on his bet and simulated such an encounter, it got stopped though due to rules lawyering. (can Elminster shapechange into a 20 by 20 by 20 adamintine block and can the Hectadectories I have munching on him catch it? What is the limit to falling damage it would take from such a block falling on it and can it reflex save to catch it? etc etc etc).

Lord Raziere
2013-08-15, 01:12 PM
If you can't figure out how to make the Realms work without Elminster screwing your campaign up, you're doing it wrong.

yea, only an incompetent DM could somehow make a mundane scholar screw your campaign up. :smallbiggrin:

RustyArmor
2013-08-15, 04:39 PM
Even with just standard books they were just poorly made. Granted understand they didn't figure "Hey most players are going to optimize the hell out of this game." But do agree with all the other add ons they became weaker and weaker with each new book printed.

russdm
2013-08-15, 10:08 PM
Depends on what you are doing for your adventure. You probably do upset the apple cart and involve yourselves in the politics of the world. Remember, the standard trope of fantasy is that a BBEG will never attack you directly, he will send minions of roughly equal level to deal with you, thus giving you a chance to survive.

Only stupid BBEGs follow that trope. Sending your top people to deal with troublemakers removes them from the equation. Sending minions of slightly increasing power each time just means you keep having to deal with the troublemakers. Seriously, this is one massively idiotic trope for evil overlords to follow and the main reason so many get defeated by the heroes.



Character upset the apple cart. The established goodies and baddies are opposed by one another on a grand scale. Neither side really makes a lot of headway. That's why brave adventurers are needed - to change up the status quo.

This is more the case that all the established goodies and baddies are incompetent s***s and not really impressive than the case they are opposed by one another. A bunch of optimized PCs that reach 20th level in FR can and should be able to steam roll one side or the other side into not existing anymore. The status quo is FR changes only with the novels, which usually nullifies anything the PCs have done. Example: The PCs kill Szass Tam and remove him from lichdom existence. Another splat-book comes out that details his plots for an area that you are using in your game which affects the fluff of what's happening. You know must modify that fluff to take into account what your players have done, meaning you might not be able to use the place at all.



Maybe the problem is new? Maybe no one has had the time to deal with the problem? Maybe there's a great debate occurring off screen as to how to deal with the problem? There are a thousand reasons, pick one.

Because they have other things they could be doing, the world is a big dark place full of evil after all.

This just reeks of incompetency on the part of those NPCs. And the reason the world is a big dark place full of evil is that the Goodies are not killing baddies and turning the bodies into ash. Seriously, the goodies almost always go for sending the baddies to prison or some garbage instead of just killing the dudes outright and burning the remains to ash then disposing the ash. Bringing people back from the dead after that point requires high level magic, which is not really available.

Another thing, the other reason for the FR world being full of evil is that the goodies spend most of their time just lounging around and doing nothing. Evil only prevails because those who could stop it were too lazy chicken s*** to do anything about it. That completely summons up the mentally of nearly good aligned NPC in FR. "Lets let those wimpy PCs deal with it, I need to finish my mojito."


All the "they're off doing bigger things" arguments mean is "This problem isn't really all that big a deal. It doesn't matter enough for the real heroes to give a damn."

I agree with this idea strongly. This is the essential FR Good NPC attitude. Whereas the evil ones are always coming up with scams/plans, which they try to make happen somehow.

Lord Raziere
2013-08-15, 10:13 PM
ok russdm:

1. BBEG sends his level 19 minions or whatever that kills all the PCs, what now.

2. The good guys destroy all the evil guys before the PC's come in. what problems do you solve now?

russdm
2013-08-15, 10:24 PM
So? Maybe the PCs should have been discreet in opposing the BBEG. Maybe the PCs should hire some people to work as bandits for them to fight? Maybe the PCs can help out the kids with chores or what not? Do you seriously think just because the current crop of evil dudes are all gone, that others won't try to fill the job openings? With the current group gone, it leaves room for promotions.

Felhammer
2013-08-16, 12:49 AM
Only stupid BBEGs follow that trope. Sending your top people to deal with troublemakers removes them from the equation. Sending minions of slightly increasing power each time just means you keep having to deal with the troublemakers. Seriously, this is one massively idiotic trope for evil overlords to follow and the main reason so many get defeated by the heroes.

What's the point of playing the game if Saruman destroys the Fellowship? They never stood a chance. He could have killed them the moment he found out who they were and where they were going.

But that isn't much of a story, now is it?




The status quo is FR changes only with the novels, which usually nullifies anything the PCs have done. Example: The PCs kill Szass Tam and remove him from lichdom existence. Another splat-book comes out that details his plots for an area that you are using in your game which affects the fluff of what's happening. You know must modify that fluff to take into account what your players have done, meaning you might not be able to use the place at all.

Your campaign is NOT canonical. No one (except you and your friends) really cares about how Ragdar the Brave, Sped the Quick, Twehethee Birdtalker and Jokan the Relentless slew Szass Tam. That's YOUR personal story. The published works set in Faerun do not revolve around your characters, nor should you ever expect them to. So what if a new book is released? If it decimates the adventures your characters have had, why are you adding it to your campaign?

Your point is, essentially, "My fan-fiction is completely contradicted by the official source material and that upsets me."





This just reeks of incompetency on the part of those NPCs. And the reason the world is a big dark place full of evil is that the Goodies are not killing baddies and turning the bodies into ash. Seriously, the goodies almost always go for sending the baddies to prison or some garbage instead of just killing the dudes outright and burning the remains to ash then disposing the ash. Bringing people back from the dead after that point requires high level magic, which is not really available.

This isn't the Marvel Universe, slaying bad people is a part of life. The reason Bad People survive is because they are cunning and truly powerful. If you had a 50/50 shot of slaying a bad guy, would you do it with the knowledge that if you die, other evils would be allowed to grow in power?

If I were to play in your version of Faerun, why the heck would I believe simply killing a bad guy, burning his corpse and eliminating the ashes would keep that bad guy from coming back? Why is he so incompetent as to not have a backup plan for death? Why are the gods of evil not bringing the baddie back so he can run amok some more?


Another thing, the other reason for the FR world being full of evil is that the goodies spend most of their time just lounging around and doing nothing. Evil only prevails because those who could stop it were too lazy chicken s*** to do anything about it. That completely summons up the mentally of nearly good aligned NPC in FR. "Lets let those wimpy PCs deal with it, I need to finish my mojito."

The opposite is also true. Why aren't the evil people getting off their lazy buts and killing all the high level good guys?

The reason is that if you have survived all the trials and tribulations to become a high level character, why would you willingly risk your life on anything that isn't a sure bet? Both sides have people to fight their wars and do their bidding. Why lift more than a finger?

AuraTwilight
2013-08-16, 01:47 AM
What's the point of playing the game if Saruman destroys the Fellowship? They never stood a chance. He could have killed them the moment he found out who they were and where they were going.

But that isn't much of a story, now is it?

Corollary: Saruman doesn't necessarily know these guys are ruining his plans. In real life, resistance groups against evil people in power don't make headway by making their identities known.


Your campaign is NOT canonical. No one (except you and your friends) really cares about how Ragdar the Brave, Sped the Quick, Twehethee Birdtalker and Jokan the Relentless slew Szass Tam. That's YOUR personal story. The published works set in Faerun do not revolve around your characters, nor should you ever expect them to. So what if a new book is released? If it decimates the adventures your characters have had, why are you adding it to your campaign?

Your point is, essentially, "My fan-fiction is completely contradicted by the official source material and that upsets me."

Wow, that's kind of a super dickish way to put it, considering the whole point of an RPG is for my fanfiction to be catered to. :P

The purpose of the game setting is to be an environment for my group to tell their stories. The Forgotten Realms setting is not congruent with our abilities to tell stories where our characters appreciably matter, and as soon as they become significant, they are no longer occupying the actual game setting as presented. Why, then, should anyone care about how the game setting progresses when the PCs of whichever group are not involved?

Take, for example, Exalted. There's a buttload of cool setting information, history, and existing problems. However, the timeline is effectively paused right when the PCs enter the picture, and there is no metaplot. Only you can decide Creation's future, and no matter who you are, as an Exalted, your actions matter and it's impossible to predict how your existence will change the setting.

This is a good thing.


This isn't the Marvel Universe, slaying bad people is a part of life. The reason Bad People survive is because they are cunning and truly powerful. If you had a 50/50 shot of slaying a bad guy, would you do it with the knowledge that if you die, other evils would be allowed to grow in power?

If I were to play in your version of Faerun, why the heck would I believe simply killing a bad guy, burning his corpse and eliminating the ashes would keep that bad guy from coming back? Why is he so incompetent as to not have a backup plan for death? Why are the gods of evil not bringing the baddie back so he can run amok some more?

This is a fallacy. The existence of other villains doesn't necessarily have any bearing on other villains coming into being, and not killing a villain because "They might come back" is asinine and not a process of reasoning anyone would ever actually make. You kill the bastard and if they get back up you kill them again until they can't. You don't just let them run around because stopping them is too inconvenient, that's not Good.


The opposite is also true. Why aren't the evil people getting off their lazy buts and killing all the high level good guys?

Indeed, why the hell aren't they? Atleast villains usually have excuses like being sealed evils in cans. Good guys don't usually have that excuse.



The reason is that if you have survived all the trials and tribulations to become a high level character, why would you willingly risk your life on anything that isn't a sure bet? Both sides have people to fight their wars and do their bidding. Why lift more than a finger?

Because with access to even 7th level divination spells you can MAKE it a sure bet.

Lord Raziere
2013-08-16, 02:23 AM
Corollary: Saruman doesn't necessarily know these guys are ruining his plans. In real life, resistance groups against evil people in power don't make headway by making their identities known.


…..

*remembers the tavern scene where the Eye looks at Frodo*

*remembers the eye looking at Frodo at those ruins near the falls and going I SEE YOU in a scary voice*

….I think something may have tipped him off.

and where did real life enter this discussion? its fantasy, relax dude.

Felhammer
2013-08-16, 02:56 AM
Corollary: Saruman doesn't necessarily know these guys are ruining his plans. In real life, resistance groups against evil people in power don't make headway by making their identities known.


My point was directed at Russdm who is playing hardcore FR, where bad guys are omnicient and good guys are omni-present. Where there is no room for characters because all the high level characters can and do solve every problem and slay every upstart.

There are definitely ways to fight evil and ensure it never knows who you are. However, once the bad guys know who you are, there is a reasonable question that must be asked - why is the BBEG not killing he PCs? In Saruman's case, he tried to do that with the snow storm, then thought himself the eventual victor by forcing the Fellowship into a trap (Moria). After that, the Fellowship was sundered and everyone went their separate ways under the radar. That's a great way to structure a campaign IMO.

However, in D&D Wizards have many more spells at their finger tips, including spells that could utterly decimate a low- to mid-level party. You do have to jump through a few more hoops but, IMO, those hoops are worth jumping through. Just because something may seem a bit "illogical" doesn't mean it's bad necessarily.



Wow, that's kind of a super dickish way to put it, considering the whole point of an RPG is for my fanfiction to be catered to. :P

You can make all the fan-fiction you want but that doesn't mean WotC really cares about the specifics of your campaign.


The purpose of the game setting is to be an environment for my group to tell their stories. The Forgotten Realms setting is not congruent with our abilities to tell stories where our characters appreciably matter, and as soon as they become significant, they are no longer occupying the actual game setting as presented. Why, then, should anyone care about how the game setting progresses when the PCs of whichever group are not involved?

The game is premised on players being heroes by killing bad people/creatures. Forgotten Realms fully endorses this concept. The idea that every high level PC is going to be targeted by even a majority of bad high level characters is simply not realistic. Why does Bad Guy X care is the PCs off Bad Guy Y who is on the other side of the continent?

People act like killing a named NPC will ripple out and utterly destroy the setting. It won't. It will change the setting (as it is the end result of you pulling off an awesome stunt) but Faerun won't suddenly implode.

If you are just going to kill Demon #986 in Dungeon #772 and minimize your contact with the setting as a whole, why are you bothering to play in Faerun?

The whole point of being in an awesome campaign setting like FR is that you are constantly interacting with the world, be it the setting's amazing cities, NPCs or locations.


Take, for example, Exalted. There's a buttload of cool setting information, history, and existing problems. However, the timeline is effectively paused right when the PCs enter the picture, and there is no metaplot. Only you can decide Creation's future, and no matter who you are, as an Exalted, your actions matter and it's impossible to predict how your existence will change the setting.

This is a good thing.

If you want a static/paused world, then there are literally thousands of settings out there that cater to that style of gaming. Heck, you can even make FR do that by only utilizing the most current campaign guide and all previous material released for the world.

However, what makes FR (and, to cite another example, Legend of the Five Rings) so impressive is that there is a wondrous metaplot that is ever evolving. It can be quite exciting to see the world evolve as you adventure through it.

The PCs are always the main characters of their story but that doesn't mean they are the main characters of the world. :smallsmile:


This is a fallacy. The existence of other villains doesn't necessarily have any bearing on other villains coming into being, and not killing a villain because "They might come back" is asinine and not a process of reasoning anyone would ever actually make. You kill the bastard and if they get back up you kill them again until they can't. You don't just let them run around because stopping them is too inconvenient, that's not Good.

You disregarded the 50/50 shot of survival issue. The penalty for dieing is that the BBEG survives and through him, other evils are allowed to spread and thrive. Détente is an efficient means of maintaining the status quo and ensuring neither side becomes too powerful. That is why wars of proxy are necessary, as they allow Good and Evil to wax and wane without drawing in the all powerful NPCs and Gods (which is a recipe for continent-wide disaster).

That is why PCs are needed - to do good in the world and help turn back the veil of darkness that shrouds the hinterlands between civilizations.


Indeed, why the hell aren't they? Atleast villains usually have excuses like being sealed evils in cans. Good guys don't usually have that excuse.

Good guys are usually plagued by the world's ills coming to their doorstep. Everyone wants Elminster to save their village. It becomes background noise at some point, especially when you are trying to deal with continent-wide and planar problems.


Because with access to even 7th level divination spells you can MAKE it a sure bet.

Not if both sides have access to the same spells, or one side is significantly higher level than the other.

AuraTwilight
2013-08-16, 04:53 AM
…..

*remembers the tavern scene where the Eye looks at Frodo*

*remembers the eye looking at Frodo at those ruins near the falls and going I SEE YOU in a scary voice*

….I think something may have tipped him off.

and where did real life enter this discussion? its fantasy, relax dude.

*facepalm* Analogies, dude. Do you know what those are? XD


My point was directed at Russdm who is playing hardcore FR, where bad guys are omnicient and good guys are omni-present. Where there is no room for characters because all the high level characters can and do solve every problem and slay every upstart.

There are definitely ways to fight evil and ensure it never knows who you are. However, once the bad guys know who you are, there is a reasonable question that must be asked - why is the BBEG not killing he PCs? In Saruman's case, he tried to do that with the snow storm, then thought himself the eventual victor by forcing the Fellowship into a trap (Moria). After that, the Fellowship was sundered and everyone went their separate ways under the radar. That's a great way to structure a campaign IMO.

However, in D&D Wizards have many more spells at their finger tips, including spells that could utterly decimate a low- to mid-level party. You do have to jump through a few more hoops but, IMO, those hoops are worth jumping through. Just because something may seem a bit "illogical" doesn't mean it's bad necessarily.

That's fine. The point I was just making however is that bringing up specific tropes and storyline cliches to justify aspects of the metaplot is bad justification, because games won't necessarily follow those tropes or treat them as valid.



You can make all the fan-fiction you want but that doesn't mean WotC really cares about the specifics of your campaign.

So then why am I paying money for parts of the book I can't use? People keep ignoring this point, it's a valid one, it's ultimately one of the things that almost ruined White Wolf before their World of Darkness reboot. They've still yet to make a full recovery to what they once were.


The game is premised on players being heroes by killing bad people/creatures. Forgotten Realms fully endorses this concept. The idea that every high level PC is going to be targeted by even a majority of bad high level characters is simply not realistic. Why does Bad Guy X care is the PCs off Bad Guy Y who is on the other side of the continent?

People act like killing a named NPC will ripple out and utterly destroy the setting. It won't. It will change the setting (as it is the end result of you pulling off an awesome stunt) but Faerun won't suddenly implode.

If you are just going to kill Demon #986 in Dungeon #772 and minimize your contact with the setting as a whole, why are you bothering to play in Faerun?

The whole point of being in an awesome campaign setting like FR is that you are constantly interacting with the world, be it the setting's amazing cities, NPCs or locations.

And this is all fine. The problem, though, is metaplot.

To use a simple hypothetical campaign world to illustrate the point, the world of Phantasee has a problem with...I don't know, an infestation of Necrocarnum undead. My PCs resolve this problem by destroying them, or by sending them to the afterlife, or by turning them into a non-dangerous fuel-source for Totally-Not-Steampunk magitech. It doesn't matter, let's call this Solution X.

Now, Phantasee's metaplot advances so that Biglong Hugendong the 18th level Wizard/Totemist gestalt Creator's Pet who's Shagging Azura, Goddess of Blue Babes (And Incarnum but no one cares), fixes the problem by reincarnating all those souls in an epic spellworking that creates a totally cool new race that people would probably love to play...

Except it's incompatible with Solution X, but my PCs hard-earned their victory and their solution, whatever it was, was interesting, dramatically satisfying, and something they want to use in future games, since it impacted the whole world.

Soo...what does a DM do here? Ignore the metaplot? Retcon their personal canon? This is not a situation where you can have both. Solution X and Race Y cannot coexist. The entire part of the Phantasee Player's Handbook regarding Race Y is unusable if Solution X is recognized.


If you want a static/paused world, then there are literally thousands of settings out there that cater to that style of gaming. Heck, you can even make FR do that by only utilizing the most current campaign guide and all previous material released for the world.

However, what makes FR (and, to cite another example, Legend of the Five Rings) so impressive is that there is a wondrous metaplot that is ever evolving. It can be quite exciting to see the world evolve as you adventure through it.

The PCs are always the main characters of their story but that doesn't mean they are the main characters of the world.

Then they should just be novel series, not game settings.

The metaplot's quality is also severely debateable. Lol spellplague.


You disregarded the 50/50 shot of survival issue. The penalty for dieing is that the BBEG survives and through him, other evils are allowed to spread and thrive. Détente is an efficient means of maintaining the status quo and ensuring neither side becomes too powerful. That is why wars of proxy are necessary, as they allow Good and Evil to wax and wane without drawing in the all powerful NPCs and Gods (which is a recipe for continent-wide disaster).

That is why PCs are needed - to do good in the world and help turn back the veil of darkness that shrouds the hinterlands between civilizations.

This isn't even really all that valid of an argument considering Forgotten Realms has one of the most unstable worlds and pantheons a fantasy setting can ask for. Gods and Epic *******s fight and ruin/alter the world like every 10 years or so.


Good guys are usually plagued by the world's ills coming to their doorstep. Everyone wants Elminster to save their village. It becomes background noise at some point, especially when you are trying to deal with continent-wide and planar problems.


Simulacrum.


Not if both sides have access to the same spells, or one side is significantly higher level than the other.

In other words, whoever shoots first wins. Good therefore has the moral imperative to strike first instead of maintaining a stalemate that prolongs suffering of the common people.

Also Elminster's screwing the goddess in charge of magic. Ask her to shut down anyone evil who's not using the Shadow Weave. Ask her for even more hilariously inappropriate powerboosts. Just...kill Shar, or something.

Like, seriously. For someone who's supposedly up to epic planar shenanigans he's sure as hell not showing results. :P

Felhammer
2013-08-16, 03:56 PM
So then why am I paying money for parts of the book I can't use? People keep ignoring this point, it's a valid one, it's ultimately one of the things that almost ruined White Wolf before their World of Darkness reboot. They've still yet to make a full recovery to what they once were.


No one is addressing your point because it isn't valid in this case. FR books concern themselves only with FR issues. If you don't like the metaplot, then stick with the main campaign book and ignore everything else. That is perfectly legitimate and gives you exactly what you want - a static campaign setting that does not evolve independent of the adventures of your player characters.

D&D won't fall into the same White Wolf trap because FR is but a segment of the overall D&D pie.




And this is all fine. The problem, though, is metaplot.

To use a simple hypothetical campaign world to illustrate the point, the world of Phantasee has a problem with...I don't know, an infestation of Necrocarnum undead. My PCs resolve this problem by destroying them, or by sending them to the afterlife, or by turning them into a non-dangerous fuel-source for Totally-Not-Steampunk magitech. It doesn't matter, let's call this Solution X.

Now, Phantasee's metaplot advances so that Biglong Hugendong the 18th level Wizard/Totemist gestalt Creator's Pet who's Shagging Azura, Goddess of Blue Babes (And Incarnum but no one cares), fixes the problem by reincarnating all those souls in an epic spellworking that creates a totally cool new race that people would probably love to play...

Except it's incompatible with Solution X, but my PCs hard-earned their victory and their solution, whatever it was, was interesting, dramatically satisfying, and something they want to use in future games, since it impacted the whole world.

Soo...what does a DM do here? Ignore the metaplot? Retcon their personal canon? This is not a situation where you can have both. Solution X and Race Y cannot coexist. The entire part of the Phantasee Player's Handbook regarding Race Y is unusable if Solution X is recognized.


Why are you allowing the metaplot change to affect your campaign? Once you start a campaign, anything that affects your campaign should not be allowed entry into your version of the world.

At the end of your campaign, the group can decide - do we start a new campaign in the official world where the metaplot has advanced and our adventures never happened, or do we continue on in the world as was affected by our previous characters' adventures and not adopt the official meta plot? Simple as that.

You are making life much more complicated for yourself by trying to constantly keep up with the metaplot while at the same time some how expecting it to never affect your epic world changing campaign.


Then they should just be novel series, not game settings.

Except people want to play in the world of the novels and WotC is catering to that market.


The metaplot's quality is also severely debateable. Lol spellplague.

Irrelevant.




This isn't even really all that valid of an argument considering Forgotten Realms has one of the most unstable worlds and pantheons a fantasy setting can ask for. Gods and Epic *******s fight and ruin/alter the world like every 10 years or so.

And what's wrong with that? Its the nature of the beast.




In other words, whoever shoots first wins. Good therefore has the moral imperative to strike first instead of maintaining a stalemate that prolongs suffering of the common people.

Considering there are easy ways to fool intelligence gathering, he who strikes first does not necessarily win.


Also Elminster's screwing the goddess in charge of magic. Ask her to shut down anyone evil who's not using the Shadow Weave. Ask her for even more hilariously inappropriate powerboosts. Just...kill Shar, or something.

Like, seriously. For someone who's supposedly up to epic planar shenanigans he's sure as hell not showing results. :P

Mystra does not do that because that would mean people would flock to the Shadow Weave, thus empowering Shar and anything that makes Shar more powerful is a bad idea.

Sebastrd
2013-08-16, 05:06 PM
Except people want to play in the world of the novels and WotC is catering to that market.

The Spellplague would disagree.

Felhammer
2013-08-16, 05:11 PM
The Spellplague would disagree.

They still had novels set after the spellplague right? They still had major NPCs running around, right? They still had a Metaplot, right?

The only thing the spellplague really changed was killing off a bunch of Human NPCs and turning the world into a land of points of light. :smallsmile:

AuraTwilight
2013-08-16, 05:48 PM
No one is addressing your point because it isn't valid in this case. FR books concern themselves only with FR issues. If you don't like the metaplot, then stick with the main campaign book and ignore everything else. That is perfectly legitimate and gives you exactly what you want - a static campaign setting that does not evolve independent of the adventures of your player characters.

D&D won't fall into the same White Wolf trap because FR is but a segment of the overall D&D pie.

My point isn't invalid just because you say it is. The other books include things that a person might want to use but advance metaplot. Like I said before, what if there's a cool thing I want to use but can't because of it's baggage?

And telling me "Just don't buy any more books" is essentially the same as "don't play in Forgotten Realms at all", which is equivalent to admitting it's a bad campaign setting because it won't be moving units.

White Wolf had more going on that World of Darkness, btw, so your last statement is invalid. Forgotten Realms is the 'default' of D&D as far as settings are concerned, and before Ebberon, was pretty much the only official campaign setting 3rd edition really supported.


Why are you allowing the metaplot change to affect your campaign? Once you start a campaign, anything that affects your campaign should not be allowed entry into your version of the world.

At the end of your campaign, the group can decide - do we start a new campaign in the official world where the metaplot has advanced and our adventures never happened, or do we continue on in the world as was affected by our previous characters' adventures and not adopt the official meta plot? Simple as that.

You are making life much more complicated for yourself by trying to constantly keep up with the metaplot while at the same time some how expecting it to never affect your epic world changing campaign.


You're not even listening. I'm not saying I'm trying to constantly keep up with the metaplot, reread. I'm saying that new content in a campaign setting with metaplot will involve metaplot baggage. I can't have the Azureborn race example, because they only exist because of an event that can't happen in my campaign timeline. I could just start over, but that would mean abandoning the continuity of my playing group with retcons. And if I choose not to make that retcon, then, say, 50 pages of the 150 page Phantasee Player's Handbook (Including Azureborns, Azureborn Prestige Classes, feats, and specific incarnum soulmelds) is completely useless. I'm paying for a book where I can't use an entire third of it. You are not even addressing this.


Except people want to play in the world of the novels and WotC is catering to that market.

And more power to them, but it doesn't make for actually good roleplay or game design, as was already covered by different people. :P

Again, Spellplague. NO ONE wanted to use that version of the Forgotten Realms.


Irrelevant.

No it's not. You called the metaplot 'wondrous' as an argument to justify it. Don't bring up the point of quality if you don't want to discuss it, or you're being disingenuous.


And what's wrong with that? Its the nature of the beast.

Because you literally just said that powerful NPCs need to use PCs as pawns in a sort of cold war scenario to keep either side from acting directly, and thus justifying that powerful NPCs don't overshadow the characters...

Except they totally do. Your arguments don't even match the thing you're trying to defend.


Considering there are easy ways to fool intelligence gathering, he who strikes first does not necessarily win.

'Irrelevant'. You need to act eventually, might as well act as soon as possible to minimize suffering.

We're talking about Good here. Doing what's right is their top priority.


Mystra does not do that because that would mean people would flock to the Shadow Weave, thus empowering Shar and anything that makes Shar more powerful is a bad idea.

This doesn't address the "Why don't you just shoot her?" problem.


They still had novels set after the spellplague right? They still had major NPCs running around, right? They still had a Metaplot, right?

The only thing the spellplague really changed was killing off a bunch of Human NPCs and turning the world into a land of points of light.

And people hated it so much that ther'es an event going on right now to totally undo it with The Sundering.

Felhammer
2013-08-16, 06:42 PM
My point isn't invalid just because you say it is. The other books include things that a person might want to use but advance metaplot. Like I said before, what if there's a cool thing I want to use but can't because of it's baggage?

The DM can allow it if he wants or alter the fluff to accommodate it into the campaign. These really aren't mind taxing concepts.

Your complaint can also occur in static settings as well. If your PCs prevent the Mourning in Eberron and WotC releases an entire supplement that deals with the denizens of that blasted area, then there is an entire book you will not be able to use in your campaign.

If your campaign alters the world, then you cannot expect to get the same amount of mileage out of new books as you would have had had your campaign not altered the world.



And telling me "Just don't buy any more books" is essentially the same as "don't play in Forgotten Realms at all", which is equivalent to admitting it's a bad campaign setting because it won't be moving units.

I never said don't buy books. I said don't allow other books to be canon in your campaign if they alter your adventures. Considering FR is WotC's best selling setting and has been moving the metaplot forward with each book, the buying public would seem to disagree with you.


White Wolf had more going on that World of Darkness, btw, so your last statement is invalid. Forgotten Realms is the 'default' of D&D as far as settings are concerned, and before Ebberon, was pretty much the only official campaign setting 3rd edition really supported.

FR was not the default setting for any edition of the game (though Next appears to be leaning in that direction). Eberron had fewer supplements released for it than FR in 3rd edition.


You're not even listening. I'm not saying I'm trying to constantly keep up with the metaplot, reread. I'm saying that new content in a campaign setting with metaplot will involve metaplot baggage. I can't have the Azureborn race example, because they only exist because of an event that can't happen in my campaign timeline. I could just start over, but that would mean abandoning the continuity of my playing group with retcons. And if I choose not to make that retcon, then, say, 50 pages of the 150 page Phantasee Player's Handbook (Including Azureborns, Azureborn Prestige Classes, feats, and specific incarnum soulmelds) is completely useless. I'm paying for a book where I can't use an entire third of it. You are not even addressing this.

Change the fluff, retcon or disallow the material. These are simple solutions. Why are you buying a book that will negatively affect your campaign? It was your choice (or your DM's) to create a game changing campaign, some times that means new material will contradict established campaign canon.

Imagine playing in a Waterdeep with only the FRCS as your window into the city. Imagine you have been apart of a bunch of adventures in the city, adventures that have seen you meet all of the big wigs of the city and hordes of other NPCs (almost all of whom were created by the DM). Imagine that your adventures have completely altered the balance of power in the city. Now imagine if WotC releases an entire supplement focused on Waterdeep. This book completely contradicts everything you have experienced in the city.

What does a reasonable person do?

Completely disregard the fluff of book and continue with the campaign as intended.

The same should hold true for every other supplement released for FR. If it contradicts what you have done in a campaign, ignore it.

The supplement will be there at the book store when you play in FR again. There's no need to rush out and buy it right now.



Again, Spellplague. NO ONE wanted to use that version of the Forgotten Realms.

You can't say "NO ONE" because there were throngs of very happy people who liked the "new realms" and hordes of others who really didn't care either way.




No it's not. You called the metaplot 'wondrous' as an argument to justify it. Don't bring up the point of quality if you don't want to discuss it, or you're being disingenuous.

I think the metaplot is on the best aspects of FR that differentiates it from all the other generic pseudo-medieval D&D fantasy worlds. If you don't like it, go play in one of those other settings. :smallsmile:


Because you literally just said that powerful NPCs need to use PCs as pawns in a sort of cold war scenario to keep either side from acting directly, and thus justifying that powerful NPCs don't overshadow the characters...

You can be a pawn in a great war and still feel amazingly epic. The two ideas are not mutually exclusive. It's no different than being guided by a good god to wage war against an evil god's minions.





'Irrelevant'. You need to act eventually, might as well act as soon as possible to minimize suffering.

No, you act in your own time when you can get the most bang for your effort.




And people hated it so much that ther'es an event going on right now to totally undo it with The Sundering.

Have you seen the new map? It really isn't changing that much.

Craft (Cheese)
2013-08-16, 06:50 PM
You are making life much more complicated for yourself by trying to constantly keep up with the metaplot while at the same time some how expecting it to never affect your epic world changing campaign.

Except your entire point is, as best as I can gather, that having a campaign world that evolves in parallel to the events of your campaign is what makes metaplot appealing in the first place. You're undermining yourself here.


Again, Spellplague. NO ONE wanted to use that version of the Forgotten Realms.

...I liked post-Spellplague FR. Then again, the only people who seem to like the Spellplague are the people who hated FR to begin with, and I'm certainly in that camp.

Felhammer
2013-08-16, 07:04 PM
Except your entire point is, as best as I can gather, that having a campaign world that evolves in parallel to the events of your campaign is what makes metaplot appealing in the first place. You're undermining yourself here.

Not really. If you like FR but don't like the Metaplot, then just play in FR. You don't need to update the setting beyond the point when you start your campaign. If new materials are released, then look them over. If they do not affect your campaign, then feel free to add them to your version of the world. If they do affect your campaign, then decide if it is worth the effort to adapt the new things to your campaign. At worst you simply do not allow all or some of a new supplement.

My point is that if you want a static setting, you can make FR into one. If you want an ever evolving world, then you can do that in FR too. The only difference will be the amount of new content you add to your campaign.

The Metaplot is added value to an already richly detailed campaign setting. I think it is one of the best aspects of the world but it is not necessary to have fun in the Forgotten Realms.

EDIT: If your adventures radically alter the world, then you cannot expect every new supplement that is released to work with your version of the Realms. This is true of every setting. If you blow up Sharn or Coruscant or Tyr, then that is going to ripple out and affect a lot of aspects of the setting. Many of those ripples could radically alter the world thus making new supplements undesirable for your campaign because they will not fit any longer.

russdm
2013-08-16, 07:37 PM
I thought I would point out first; I don't play in the FR, hardcore or otherwise.

Maintaining the status quo means that nothing the PCs do even matters and that every effort that gets made just gets pushed under the rug. Seriously, read the d*** meta-plot bit about the so called concerns of the mighty. Its complete garbage because it assumes all of the various NPCs are capable of handling each other on equal terms which is not even true. Both Moonshine(manshoon) and Sassam(Szass Tam) could kill elminister, no problem. Other than Mystra, nothing is stopping them other than some dumb deal that makes it impossible for them to do anything about el. It is the same for the other side.

This is completely unbelievable considering that FR is supposed to a living breathing world and gets treated usually as such, but the meta-plot does nothing but point out its a game setting and nothing more. People act like characters in game, not inhabitants of a real world.

Most of those other settings you derisively discard have less problems than FR does and its noticeable. In Dragonlance, the heroes still around from the Chronicles books numbers like 1 in the setting, and 3 at the time of the War of souls books. That's in a space of less than 100 years! In FR, times passes and a lot of people are still around, including some that are short-lived and should be gone. Nobody (Named NPCs) dies in FR, they just linger on and get forgotten about. Some NPCs may have died with Drizzt, and Kelemvor, but those were like rare cases. In the NPC makes it into a splat-book or is seen as a big selling character, WOTC is not likely to have them shuffle off the mortal coil even if that is what is supposed to happen.

Evil Gods/Goddesses are notorious for not allowing people who failed them to come back to life. If you screw up doing something for them, you aren't coming back. Resurrections are expensive and out of rich of almost everybody except high ranking clergy and wealthy folk.

Your whole argument about the NPCs and why they don't do anything essentially boils down to giving them the mentalltity, "I don't give a d*** about anyone besides myself and could care less about others." NPCs in FR don't think about CR or such or about how much weaker those goblins are. If they are threatening someone the NPC cares about, they get rid of the goblins. Nobody other than the PCs or the DM treats FR as being a game setting. For everyone else, its the world they live in. That's why the meta-plot stinks so much, it makes the NPCs act like they have no clue if they are even alive and if they should be following their established personality.

Knowing you can get rid of a problem and entrusting it to a bunch of people who just met in a bar is the height of laziness. If this is how you act, why do you even exist? Those who get stat blocks are those whom the designers think will be used by the DM to do things. If they didn't want the NPCs to actually game mechanically affect the game, then they shouldn't have made up the stat blocks for them.

Releasing books that few will buy because huge parts of it are useless means less sales which means less money. They need to make money, they are a business and don't really care if people don't care. Why else do you think they went with the spellplague still despite so many people complaining? Because it sold books for them.

FR was a money maker and it has now become bloated (3.5 one, not 4e one) with lore and other garbage. Its more interesting to read about stuff in FR than actually play in my opinion and so I don't play in it.

Felhammer
2013-08-16, 08:59 PM
FR isn't even close to being my favorite campaign setting. I don't "derisively discard" any setting except to say that FR is what FR is. I don't want to take a banana and make an apple pie with it. When I want to deal with a wondrous metaplot, then I will go to FR. If I want fewer issues cropping up over the course of my long campaign, I will head to a more static world. Play to each settings' strengths and don't try to radically alter how the campaign is run to accommodate your vision for the way something "should be" when WotC is releasing hordes of other settings that cater to that particular style.

How many near-epic level, non-deity characters are there in the Realms? Ten? A Hundred? A Thousand?

Faerfun is massive, there's room enough for every one to exist.

High Level characters don't necessarily need to worry about lowly goblins because the entire setting is premised on "Adventuring" being common enough to be a job descriptor. There are hundreds of thousands of adventurers in the world willing to risk life and limb for the promise of reward. If Elminster saw a goblin horde approaching a caravan, he would intervene. But there are thousands of incidents just like that one that occur across the continent every single day. Faerun is a dark and scary place full of danger. One man can save but a handful of people a day, where as a hundred thousand adventurers can each do that every day. You support and push adventures along to hone their skills because, some day, they might rise to become the new Elminsters.

Not every villain is "RAWR! I want to conquer the world!" Some are content with their realms. Many have thick layers of defenses that would amount to declaring war if you really wanted to defeat them. That requires an army. Most high level NPCs do not have armies, and even if they do, they are usually tied to a specific place. If their armies left to go fight in Thay, it would leave their homeland defenseless against a local villain. Rulers and Generals must always be pragmatic.

Most other settings have not supported a wildly popular novel series for 20+ years. Big name characters survive because their existence is key to the long term survival of the setting as a whole.

Entrusting a bunch of people who met in a Tavern is something you do to go kill some Orcs or Goblins. You don't do that when the fate of the Kingdom is at stake. They have to prove themselves worthy of being the heroes, which requires more than owning a sword and meeting at a Tavern.

FR is WotC's most successful setting. It expands, changes and updates the fluff with every single supplement released. It has done this for 20+ years. This would not have happened had the setting not sold well. There is a market for both kinds of campaign settings (static and living). Both can sell well but the living aspect seems to really work really for FR.

To be honest, I highly doubt it would work for most other settings. I can really only think of FR and L5R (and Star Wars) that have successful managed to do the living idea on a large scale. It is definitely fraught with the problems you cite (lack of sales being the biggie). That's why most settings are not this way. It's riskier unless you have a massive, dedicated fanbase that is eager for updates to constantly come out.

AuraTwilight
2013-08-16, 10:54 PM
FR is WotC's most successful setting. It expands, changes and updates the fluff with every single supplement released. It has done this for 20+ years. This would not have happened had the setting not sold well. There is a market for both kinds of campaign settings (static and living). Both can sell well but the living aspect seems to really work really for FR.

Everyone else rebutted to most of your points adequately so I'll just address this.

This is an ad populism argument. You're not taking all factors into accounts: Forgotten Realms is one of the only settings that got supported in basically every edition, it's the default setting, and most of the other settings simply cater to completely different needs and genres (Eberron, Ravenloft, Spelljammer, Planescape)...

I could easily argue that the popularity of Forgotten Realms is because people will always flog to the flagship title, especially when it's the only one catering to the typical fantasy setting they want. Not everyone has what it takes to make their own campaign world, afterall.


The DM can allow it if he wants or alter the fluff to accommodate it into the campaign. These really aren't mind taxing concepts.

Your complaint can also occur in static settings as well. If your PCs prevent the Mourning in Eberron and WotC releases an entire supplement that deals with the denizens of that blasted area, then there is an entire book you will not be able to use in your campaign.

If your campaign alters the world, then you cannot expect to get the same amount of mileage out of new books as you would have had had your campaign not altered the world.

How can my players 'prevent' an incident that occured in the past of a static world? :P

Altering the fluff isn't sufficient for the problem I'm posing to you, quit misrepresenting it. "You can change the fluff!" just changes the question to "Alright, then why am I paying for fluff I can't use"?


I never said don't buy books. I said don't allow other books to be canon in your campaign if they alter your adventures. Considering FR is WotC's best selling setting and has been moving the metaplot forward with each book, the buying public would seem to disagree with you.

See above. And, again, my problems posed are hypothetical ones. I'm pretending for this argument to be the typical FR book consumer. My games derail from the metaplot canon, meaning the metaplot by necessity becomes less and less and less AND LESS relevant with each passing session and/or book. If everyone took your advice, Forgotten Realms wouldn't be that popular. You're essentially arguing that Forgotten Realms is popular because of complacency syndrome.

Which I would agree with you on.


FR was not the default setting for any edition of the game (though Next appears to be leaning in that direction). Eberron had fewer supplements released for it than FR in 3rd edition.

Errr, yea it was. FR and Greyhawk were both defaults for 3rd edition. Your observation that Eberron got less support than FR did in 3rd edition only supports my argument.


Change the fluff, retcon or disallow the material. These are simple solutions. Why are you buying a book that will negatively affect your campaign? It was your choice (or your DM's) to create a game changing campaign, some times that means new material will contradict established campaign canon.

Imagine playing in a Waterdeep with only the FRCS as your window into the city. Imagine you have been apart of a bunch of adventures in the city, adventures that have seen you meet all of the big wigs of the city and hordes of other NPCs (almost all of whom were created by the DM). Imagine that your adventures have completely altered the balance of power in the city. Now imagine if WotC releases an entire supplement focused on Waterdeep. This book completely contradicts everything you have experienced in the city.

What does a reasonable person do?

Completely disregard the fluff of book and continue with the campaign as intended.

The same should hold true for every other supplement released for FR. If it contradicts what you have done in a campaign, ignore it.

The supplement will be there at the book store when you play in FR again. There's no need to rush out and buy it right now.

See above. The metaplot exists. The existence of the metaplot either A) Hurts my creativity as a DM because players want me to follow it/use material it creates, or B) forces me to do more work because if I don't use the metaplot and it's fluff I have to change everything I don't like manually.


You can't say "NO ONE" because there were throngs of very happy people who liked the "new realms" and hordes of others who really didn't care either way.


Statistically speaking it was tremendously unpopular. I can say "NO ONE" likes it in much the same way people can say "No one likes Twilight." The people who like it are a minority in comparison to before the Spellplague; this is demonstratably true even by the book sales you like bringing up so much.


You can be a pawn in a great war and still feel amazingly epic. The two ideas are not mutually exclusive. It's no different than being guided by a good god to wage war against an evil god's minions.


Yea, that's what my players want to hear. "You're pawns. You're acting under the agency of someone else as part of machinations beyond your control. You can play ball or not matter."

This also hilariously contradicts your talk about apple carts. :P


No, you act in your own time when you can get the most bang for your effort.

And the blood of innocents is on your hands because you didn't act sooner. Great job.


Have you seen the new map? It really isn't changing that much.

There's more to a setting than a map, dude. Is that seriously your only rebuttal?

obryn
2013-08-16, 11:17 PM
I always thought it'd be a lot more interesting to run adventures out in the Hordelands because most of that wasn't meta-plotted to death (apart from the eponymous novels and adventure). Also, it's pretty sweet.

...or was it meta-plotted to death and I've missed it in the 15 years I've been ignoring the Realms?

-O

Felhammer
2013-08-17, 12:17 AM
Just because a setting is supported in every edition does not make it the default setting. In 3rd edition, the assumed world was Greyhawk. In 4E, the assumed setting was the World of the Nentir Vale.

There is a difference between the default setting and the flagship setting. Forgotten Realms is the latter but not the former.

Greyhawk and Dragonlance both cater to the traditional fantasy genre (in ways Eberron, Dark Sun, Al Qadim and others do not). The lack of 1st party support for either of those settings always brought sadness to my heart because Forgotten Realms is not everyone's cup of tea and, personally, I do like those two settings quite a bit. DL did get quite a bit of support in 3rd edition but only via Weis' company.

Speaking of Dragonlance, I remember people being equally flummoxed by the abundance and importance of the novels' characters. I can understand that grievance a bit more, considering just how tiny Krynn is compared to Faerun. There really isn't any where you can go that doesn't have big named characters in it (where as Faerun has whole swathes of the continent devoid of an abundance of high level characters).

Eberron is a static world but the Forge of War includes an entire chapter about setting a campaign in the Last War so, theoretically, you could run a game whereby the PCs prevent the Mourning and thus invalidate every other Eberron book.

My question to you is - why are you buying a book if you know it won't be compatible with your campaign? I have answered your question multiple times (you buy it because you like the Lore, you buy it because you can adapt aspects of it to your campaign, you buy it because you will use it in a different campaign, etc.). You are sticking doggedly to the completest mentality combined with the "everything in a book must add value to my campaign to be worth purchasing" mentality. Here's my official stance - If a metaplot change messes with your campaign, don't buy the book. If a normal supplement completely unhinges your campaign, then don't buy it. Don't waste your money. If your only goal is to get every cent out of a book right here, right now and you know that in your personal campaign you can't get that kind of value - then don't waste your money.

WotC doesn't want to hear that but that's the risk they run with every single campaign setting supplement. Some group some where will be running a campaign where a new supplement or metaplot change will completely wreck their campaign.

That's why there is a DM to say, "No. This event, these people, these concepts do not exist or have happened in my version of the world."

There is nothing wrong with that. Your story SHOULD do what it needs to do to allow everyone at the table to have fun. You do not need to keep up with WotC to have fun.

Here's what I don't understand. Any time you run a campaign in an official world, you always run the risk of bumping into future official content and being forced to either alter or ignore the official fluff. If you play in Country Y that only has, let's say, 3 pages of fluff for the entire Country. You play there for a year. The DM builds upon all of the plot threads present in the campaign guide and homebrews a ton of stuff. Suddenly a new supplement comes out that fleshes out Country Y in great detail. Suddenly the "official canon" and your adventure's canon are two very separate entities. That's the same thing as the metaplot changing the world.

Now one can make the argument that the metaplot builds upon itself but this can be true of multiple splat books being released in areas where the PCs have adventured.

Excepting the RSE of edition changes (which I think we can all agree are unnecessary), it isn't often that the metaplot affects a single campaign multiple times, at least no more so than walking through the decimation new splat books can cause.



The reason I am contradicting myself on the applecart debate is that there is no singular answer to it. Every single High Level character has a different answer for why he does not go off to war against each of his enemies and he has a different answer as to how he interacts up up and coming neophyte adventurers and higher level ones. It isn't an issues that can be solved with a singular answer. It is a complex issue that relies on a thousand different reasons and justifications.

The blood of a few innocents could be on my hand but if I bide my time and truly stop my enemies when the time is right, then I have just saved countless more. It's the old debate of "if you could sacrifice a single innocent man to save a thousand, would you do it."

As for the new map, my point was that they are not undoing 4E with the Sundering. Some of it will be altered but a lot of it will remain the same. WotC isn't backtracking to the extent that you implied in your post. :smallsmile:

There's always more information that a map cannot convey but Chult is still an island chain, the Underchasm still exists, the Sea of Fallen Stars still has less water, High Imaskar is still around, Tymanther didn't poof away, etc. The Sundering isn't a re-set button. :(

Additionally, it is very difficult to compare pre-4E realms and post 4E realms in terms of sales and popularity because WotC essentially abandoned FR after producing 2 campaign books in 2008. It was not until 2011 that WotC released another campaign supplement for FR (Neverwinter). Compared to FR of previous editions, this dearth of official materials was shocking and extraordinary. It was also a highly unpopular move on WotC part, which is why they are correcting that mistake with Next (which has promised to focus much more heavily on official campaign settings).

4E was a bad time for every campaign setting, most especially FR (and Eberron to a lesser extent (because we Eberronians railed hard against a timeline advancement)) who went from 3-4 supplements a year to just 3 in 3 years. However, that just gets into an edition wars argument, which will inevitably lead most people to say "WotC made a lot of mistakes."

@obryn: There were a lot of things that happened around the Hordelands (or came through the Hordelands) in 3E but, IIRC, it was spared much of the metaplot as it is a peripheral zone.

AuraTwilight
2013-08-17, 01:22 AM
Just because a setting is supported in every edition does not make it the default setting. In 3rd edition, the assumed world was Greyhawk. In 4E, the assumed setting was the World of the Nentir Vale.

There is a difference between the default setting and the flagship setting. Forgotten Realms is the latter but not the former.

Then just substitute one word for the other. You're nitpicking details and not seeing the forest for the trees.



Eberron is a static world but the Forge of War includes an entire chapter about setting a campaign in the Last War so, theoretically, you could run a game whereby the PCs prevent the Mourning and thus invalidate every other Eberron book.

Yea, but that's explicitly something you have to go out of your way for; it's not comparable to the situations I brought up, where entirely new content can blindside natural results of you using the present setting with no intentions of screwing with basic premises.


My question to you is - why are you buying a book if you know it won't be compatible with your campaign? I have answered your question multiple times (you buy it because you like the Lore, you buy it because you can adapt aspects of it to your campaign, you buy it because you will use it in a different campaign, etc.). You are sticking doggedly to the completest mentality combined with the "everything in a book must add value to my campaign to be worth purchasing" mentality. Here's my official stance - If a metaplot change messes with your campaign, don't buy the book. If a normal supplement completely unhinges your campaign, then don't buy it. Don't waste your money. If your only goal is to get every cent out of a book right here, right now and you know that in your personal campaign you can't get that kind of value - then don't waste your money.

You're still missing my point. Again. For the Nth time. My mentality isn't a completionist one but a utilitarian one. Maybe I only want those mechanical bits or those fluff bits, doesn't matter; It's not like I can just buy the mechanics portion at a cheaper price or something, but I'm not saying I necessarily want to. The point I'm getting at is that it's a snowball effect; the more they diverge, the less useful books will be. I'm being punished/isolated/alienated by my failure to adhere to the metaplot. I can adapt the fluff, but they WHY GIVE ME FLUFF to begin with? Just sell it separately as novels, I have no problem with those.

And I can't know what's in a book until I buy it and read it, that retort is stupid.


Here's what I don't understand. Any time you run a campaign in an official world, you always run the risk of bumping into future official content and being forced to either alter or ignore the official fluff. If you play in Country Y that only has, let's say, 3 pages of fluff for the entire Country. You play there for a year. The DM builds upon all of the plot threads present in the campaign guide and homebrews a ton of stuff. Suddenly a new supplement comes out that fleshes out Country Y in great detail. Suddenly the "official canon" and your adventure's canon are two very separate entities. That's the same thing as the metaplot changing the world.

There's significant differences there, however, in that metaplot is cumulative and expanding on a region isn't. If Country Y is fleshed out in a way that contradicts my personal canon, I can just change the official interpretation of Country Y into Country Z.

But if Mystara is killed, the Weave collapses and all magic with it temporarily, the divine pantheon shifts around significantly and the world map is altered by catastrophic forces, well...that pretty much just blows me like a whistle. That's kind of an all-or-nothing deal where I have to take or leave it since it's A global event, and all content published after the fact will be written in the context of this event.

It's kind of like how pretty much no one likes when comic book universes do Crisis of Infinite Earth continuity reboots, except there it's more understandable to prevent continuity lockout. Here, it's borderline just part of WOTC's planned obsolescence model.


Now one can make the argument that the metaplot builds upon itself but this can be true of multiple splat books being released in areas where the PCs have adventured.

Again, though, even in the worst case scenario this only effects a fraction of the game world, and it doesn't have the same continuity issue of negating the relevance of your PCs.

You know what's the worst thing about a Metaplot? When they solve problems. The best metaplots White Wolf did, for instance, left problems constantly open in a "Getting worse and worse" type thing until the final apocalyptic books, leaving your PCs free to address problems without having an NPC do it in a future installment.



Excepting the RSE of edition changes (which I think we can all agree are unnecessary), it isn't often that the metaplot affects a single campaign multiple times, at least no more so than walking through the decimation new splat books can cause.

From experience, I can say otherwise.


The reason I am contradicting myself on the applecart debate is that there is no singular answer to it. Every single High Level character has a different answer for why he does not go off to war against each of his enemies and he has a different answer as to how he interacts up up and coming neophyte adventurers and higher level ones. It isn't an issues that can be solved with a singular answer. It is a complex issue that relies on a thousand different reasons and justifications.

This is absolutely not what I meant when I mentioned a contradiction. But nevermind, I'm starting to lose confidence that you'll be able to follow any of my points instead of just strawmaning them into things you want me to be saying.

It's getting kind of condescending, honestly.


The blood of a few innocents could be on my hand but if I bide my time and truly stop my enemies when the time is right, then I have just saved countless more. It's the old debate of "if you could sacrifice a single innocent man to save a thousand, would you do it."


Screw that, save a thousand and one. Moral quandries like this only exist in settings with magic in them if you're too complacent to deny them.


As for the new map, my point was that they are not undoing 4E with the Sundering. Some of it will be altered but a lot of it will remain the same. WotC isn't backtracking to the extent that you implied in your post.

But they ARE backtracking. Like, a lot. Like, to the extent that they're organizing a quasi-ARG about it. It's an extension of their current "please everyone" philosophy.


There's always more information that a map cannot convey but Chult is still an island chain, the Underchasm still exists, the Sea of Fallen Stars still has less water, High Imaskar is still around, Tymanther didn't poof away, etc. The Sundering isn't a re-set button. :(

Never effing said it would be, or even implied otherwise. I'd be equally upset if they DID, since it'd negate every plotline people did post-Spellplague.


Additionally, it is very difficult to compare pre-4E realms and post 4E realms in terms of sales and popularity because WotC essentially abandoned FR after producing 2 campaign books in 2008. It was not until 2011 that WotC released another campaign supplement for FR (Neverwinter). Compared to FR of previous editions, this dearth of official materials was shocking and extraordinary. It was also a highly unpopular move on WotC part, which is why they are correcting that mistake with Next (which has promised to focus much more heavily on official campaign settings).

The point still stands; only the first year of a book's sales really matter for macroeconomic analysis on this topic anyway.


4E was a bad time for every campaign setting, most especially FR (and Eberron to a lesser extent (because we Eberronians railed hard against a timeline advancement)) who went from 3-4 supplements a year to just 3 in 3 years. However, that just gets into an edition wars argument, which will inevitably lead most people to say "WotC made a lot of mistakes."

Agreed. Let's not go there. The point is, however, is that the Spellplague is just one of the big examples of what I was talking about, and people compared it to Crisis of Infinite Earths and...well 90% of Vampire: The Masquarade in an unflattering manner.

Vizzerdrix
2013-08-17, 02:04 AM
Mystra will die! And the weave will be explode! And there will be a big cataclysmic disastrous cataclysm that moves lands around! And turns established locations into a random dungeon instead! And then Mystra will die!

And due to yet another instability in the weave/all magic Gond will be reborn as a major deity. To heck with magic. Steampunk Forgotten Relms!

Felhammer
2013-08-17, 02:41 AM
Since both of us are basically at the point of banging our heads against a wall as neither is really getting their point across, I propose a new topic. :smallsmile:

How will Next handle Deities?

AuraTwilight
2013-08-17, 04:17 AM
How will Next handle Deities?

Terribly and/or Blandly.

Felhammer
2013-08-17, 04:26 AM
Terribly and/or Blandly.

Blandly is a threat. I often look at the 3rd edition FRCS and grow a bit sad when I look at the Deity section. There are, what, 150+ gods listed in the book and they only detail around 20 of them in any kind of depth. Sure there was that free PDF but it isn't quite the same as having all that info in the core rule book itself.

I wonder if Asmodeus is going to survive, or if they are going to bring back Azuth? I miss Azuth. Sure he wasn't the flashiest of deities but he was always there when you needed a nice god of Spells who didn't shove is morality upon, well, everyone.

jedipotter
2013-08-17, 09:05 AM
The Metaplot is added value to an already richly detailed campaign setting. I think it is one of the best aspects of the world but it is not necessary to have fun in the Forgotten Realms.

EDIT: If your adventures radically alter the world, then you cannot expect every new supplement that is released to work with your version of the Realms. This is true of every setting. If you blow up Sharn or Coruscant or Tyr, then that is going to ripple out and affect a lot of aspects of the setting. Many of those ripples could radically alter the world thus making new supplements undesirable for your campaign because they will not fit any longer.

I like the Reams as things happen there. You get a nice back drop and story. Compare to other settings, or a homebrew:

In the other setting/homebrew the character's are in the city of Pon. If they ask ''what is going on in the entire rest of the world can the DM answer? Sure the DM might toss out a couple ideas, but filling a world is a lot of time and work. (and note by world, I'm talking about an Earth sized planet, not a lame tiny ''Middle Earth'' setting) It is a lot of a DM, in just a couple seconds, to fill a world. And when you do so, it all has to make sense. You have to keep track of everything, so you don't have events mix up or make mistakes. (and again, we are not talking about tiny settings with like, wow, five countries and like wow ten citites.)


And how does it work in other settings? The whole world is just frozen in time unless the Pc are there right? There won't be a fire in Sharn unless the DM says so and the players are there to see it.

tasw
2013-08-17, 10:13 AM
I like the Reams as things happen there. You get a nice back drop and story. Compare to other settings, or a homebrew:

In the other setting/homebrew the character's are in the city of Pon. If they ask ''what is going on in the entire rest of the world can the DM answer? Sure the DM might toss out a couple ideas, but filling a world is a lot of time and work. (and note by world, I'm talking about an Earth sized planet, not a lame tiny ''Middle Earth'' setting) It is a lot of a DM, in just a couple seconds, to fill a world. And when you do so, it all has to make sense. You have to keep track of everything, so you don't have events mix up or make mistakes. (and again, we are not talking about tiny settings with like, wow, five countries and like wow ten citites.)


And how does it work in other settings? The whole world is just frozen in time unless the Pc are there right? There won't be a fire in Sharn unless the DM says so and the players are there to see it.


If a tree falls in Nentir vale without a PC there to witness it does it make a sound?


I never had any problem with realms meta-plot. Like you said, the world is huge, if I remember from the big grey box there was an overlay where the basic setting was the size of Eurasia, plus you could add kara-tur for the far east, al-qadim for the south, and Maztica for another continent across the sea.

All in a world with no 5 o'clock news or cell phones to keep the PC's updated on the world.

I always started a FR campaign with "what I tell you about the realms is true. EVERYTHING else is stuff you've heard in market stalls, taverns rumors and the highly embellished tales of wandering bards, take nothing as truth unless you have seen it with your own eyes. " .... existing meta-plot neutered. I can pick and choose anything that I liked and the rest was just stories that turned out to be false.

New books come out? So what? On the off chance it actually affected the part of the world we were in and I bought it anyway I did it to mine for ideas. Not because I intended to drop it word for word into my existing campaign. That idea is just dumb.

Now if i bought a book detailing a part of the world we werent actively in? yeah I'll use a bigger percentage of the fluff, it makes my life as a DM easier to have towns and NPC's and adventure hooks all done for me. I run Sandbox games and knowing the PC's can go anywhere they want and I can easily find something interesting for them to get involved with on the fly is a good thing.

Yora
2013-08-17, 10:55 AM
I don't have a problem with meta-plots, as long as it doesn't destroy the places I like and kill the gods my characters worship. That's the kind of things that are really annoying.

Sebastrd
2013-08-17, 11:56 PM
They still had novels set after the spellplague right? They still had major NPCs running around, right? They still had a Metaplot, right?

The only thing the spellplague really changed was killing off a bunch of Human NPCs and turning the world into a land of points of light. :smallsmile:

You're missing the point. If people wanted to play in the world of the novels and WotC was catering to that market, there wouldn't have been a Spellplague.


If your campaign alters the world, then you cannot expect to get the same amount of mileage out of new books as you would have had had your campaign not altered the world.

Again, you're missing the point here, bud. It's not my campaign that alters the world, it's the metaplot that keeps altering it. At least once every edition, and sometime more often than that.

Felhammer
2013-08-18, 01:41 AM
You're missing the point. If people wanted to play in the world of the novels and WotC was catering to that market, there wouldn't have been a Spellplague.

Just because the world is shaken up and the timeline is advanced does not mean they are catering to a different market. Every world needs a fresh start to draw new readers in and allow for new stories to be told. WotC's problem is that they went way too far with their alterations. :smallsmile:




Again, you're missing the point here, bud. It's not my campaign that alters the world, it's the metaplot that keeps altering it. At least once every edition, and sometime more often than that.

If an RSE alters the world, then you need to decide - 1) do I allow the RSE to happen as intended, 2) do I alter the RSE so it fits snugly into my story or 3) do I ignore the RSE and finish my story.

Simple and easy.

If you choose the latter, then at the end of the story you have to decide - 1) do I continue to ignore the RSE and progress in my own unique version of the world, 2) do I now allow the RSE to go off as intended (perhaps just occurring a few days/weeks/months/years later), 3) do I take the RSE and alter it so it fits more snugly into my story, or 4) do I start a new campaign set in the official timeline post-RSE.

The nature of the Forgotten Realms is continuously evolving. You know this before you start playing in the world (obviously complete neophytes are excluded). You know that things will crop up over the course of the life of your campaign that may affect your story. Each time the world is changed you must decide if you want to add the changes to your version of the world or not. This is no different than a new supplement coming out and deciding if it is considered canon in your story. It's your world, do with it as you please. :smallsmile:

If you don't like the idea of a continuously evolving world, then you can play in a different campaign setting (be it one of WotC's other great settings, a 3rd Party's world or a setting of your own devising). :smallsmile:

Alternatively, you can set an arbitrary start date for your campaign and say "nothing that takes place after this start date is considered canon for my campaign." This saves you from dealing with the metaplot advancement while still allowing you to play in FR. I have played in many campaigns that followed this methodology and it works quite well. :smallsmile:

EDIT: Like I have said, the constantly evolving world of FR is definitely not for everyone. Regardless, this discussion isn't exactly pertinent to the topic of the thread.

AuraTwilight
2013-08-18, 04:31 AM
Not to go off-topic and be a bit of a negative nancy, but Felhammer, can you stop with the constant smilies? It comes off as slightly condescending and insincere when you put it after like literally every other paragraph like that.

jedipotter
2013-08-18, 07:53 AM
You're missing the point. If people wanted to play in the world of the novels and WotC was catering to that market, there wouldn't have been a Spellplague.

Um, the spellplague was just a cheap marketing gimick. And it was aimed right at the Realms Haters with a ''Look, wow, we took the setting you hate, wow, and made it super awesome uber coolz, so now you can stop hating and like it!" And like all such gimicks, it is a slap in the face to all the fans of the setting where they say ''eh, you all suck, get lost''.

Felhammer
2013-08-18, 03:25 PM
Not to go off-topic and be a bit of a negative nancy, but Felhammer, can you stop with the constant smilies? It comes off as slightly condescending and insincere when you put it after like literally every other paragraph like that.

I'm desperately trying to avoid hurt feelings and move the conversation to other places.

russdm
2013-08-18, 07:18 PM
Um, the spellplague was just a cheap marketing gimick. And it was aimed right at the Realms Haters with a ''Look, wow, we took the setting you hate, wow, and made it super awesome uber coolz, so now you can stop hating and like it!" And like all such gimicks, it is a slap in the face to all the fans of the setting where they say ''eh, you all suck, get lost''.

Yes, but the spell-plague made it worse because it was incrediably stupid and it made no sense. The main reason for it though was because people weren't really buying enough ( in wotc's mind) books so they weren't getting much of a profit out of it.

I mean, I had a few ideas of how it could have been fixed that would have worked better. I would assume a lot of fans did. So the spellplague made it stay unlikable for those didn't like it already, and the ones who had liked it got shafted. Not a great result for WOTC, eh?

You understand they are going to make changes for 5E FR so it sells to people, and they might not be paying any attention to the old types who liked it before? So I shall wait and see how crazily they treat it.

Chambers
2013-08-18, 08:02 PM
As far as the SETTING Goes for forgotten realms, what are you hoping to see, or done in the transfer?

I'm hoping to see more books like Ed Greenwood Presents Elminster's Forgotten Realms. Sourcebooks that contain more lore than game mechanics. Game mechanics that are native to the Realms (reminiscent of Regional feats and Realms specific ACF's).

I'm hoping for sourcebooks on different regions. The North. Waterdeep. Spellbound. Cormyr. Cormanthyr. I look forward to chapbooks like Volo's Guides. I'll buy all of those.

Most importantly I'm looking forward to see how they're going to handle the Spellplague.

russdm
2013-08-18, 08:10 PM
Most importantly I'm looking forward to see how they're going to handle the Spellplague.

I hope they retcon it away and just retire some of the NPCs that need to be retired and remove excess gods that are essentially carbon copies, and make it the 4e changes be el's drunken dream. I also want less realm changing events put in the books for a single edition. Seriously these events should reflect whole edition changes if they are that powerful. Then stick later novel changes into a chapter you can draw fluff from to use, and can know about as much as they have so you set things up. Being able to change up the timeline if one wanted to would be nice.

And have Drizz chilling with el. seriously that dark elf is dope.

Felhammer
2013-08-18, 08:49 PM
I hope they retcon it away and just retire some of the NPCs that need to be retired and remove excess gods that are essentially carbon copies, and make it the 4e changes be el's drunken dream. I also want less realm changing events put in the books for a single edition. Seriously these events should reflect whole edition changes if they are that powerful. Then stick later novel changes into a chapter you can draw fluff from to use, and can know about as much as they have so you set things up. Being able to change up the timeline if one wanted to would be nice.

And have Drizz chilling with el. seriously that dark elf is dope.

From what I can tell, the Sundering is not going to retcon anything major. The newest map still has a lot of post-spell plague elements.

Map: http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2013/225/1/c/map_of_faerun_by_mikeschley-d6hxuxy.jpg

obryn
2013-08-18, 11:10 PM
From what I can tell, the Sundering is not going to retcon anything major. The newest map still has a lot of post-spell plague elements.
I don't think it's been confirmed that's the post-Sundering map, though. It's certainly the current Spellplague map.

-O

Felhammer
2013-08-18, 11:50 PM
I don't think it's been confirmed that's the post-Sundering map, though. It's certainly the current Spellplague map.

-O

Fair point but why commission a brand new map if you are just going to completely alter it after 6 books? :smallconfused:

AuraTwilight
2013-08-19, 12:46 AM
You say that like WOTC makes good business decisions. Lol.

Felhammer
2013-08-19, 01:41 AM
You say that like WOTC makes good business decisions. Lol.

Well, it's not like the map is colored or highly detailed... :smalleek:

EDIT: Hmm... What if the map is changed with each book released? Like, say, in the Drizzt book Chult is an archipelago but in the next book it's a peninsula again... That would be a really cool way of showcasing how the world is changing.

obryn
2013-08-19, 08:44 AM
Fair point but why commission a brand new map if you are just going to completely alter it after 6 books? :smallconfused:
I don't know what kinds of books you're reading, but there's maps that are only used for a single novel, all the time. :smallsmile:

-O

Sebastrd
2013-08-19, 03:02 PM
If an RSE alters the world, then you need to decide - 1) do I allow the RSE to happen as intended, 2) do I alter the RSE so it fits snugly into my story or 3) do I ignore the RSE and finish my story.

Simple and easy.

If you choose the latter, then at the end of the story you have to decide - 1) do I continue to ignore the RSE and progress in my own unique version of the world, 2) do I now allow the RSE to go off as intended (perhaps just occurring a few days/weeks/months/years later), 3) do I take the RSE and alter it so it fits more snugly into my story, or 4) do I start a new campaign set in the official timeline post-RSE.

The nature of the Forgotten Realms is continuously evolving. You know this before you start playing in the world (obviously complete neophytes are excluded). You know that things will crop up over the course of the life of your campaign that may affect your story. Each time the world is changed you must decide if you want to add the changes to your version of the world or not. This is no different than a new supplement coming out and deciding if it is considered canon in your story. It's your world, do with it as you please. :smallsmile:

If you don't like the idea of a continuously evolving world, then you can play in a different campaign setting (be it one of WotC's other great settings, a 3rd Party's world or a setting of your own devising). :smallsmile:

Alternatively, you can set an arbitrary start date for your campaign and say "nothing that takes place after this start date is considered canon for my campaign." This saves you from dealing with the metaplot advancement while still allowing you to play in FR. I have played in many campaigns that followed this methodology and it works quite well. :smallsmile:

EDIT: Like I have said, the constantly evolving world of FR is definitely not for everyone. Regardless, this discussion isn't exactly pertinent to the topic of the thread.

The thread is about what folks hope to see in the 5E Realms. For some of us the answer is, emphatically, "NOT RSEs!" I don't know how to make it any clearer than that.

Felhammer
2013-08-19, 03:06 PM
The thread is about what folks hope to see in the 5E Realms. For some of us the answer is, emphatically, "NOT RSEs!" I don't know how to make it any clearer than that.

Sadly, Greenwood has stated the Sundering will be another RSE (in the promotional video no less!). :smallfrown: :smallfrown: :smallfrown:


I don't know what kinds of books you're reading, but there's maps that are only used for a single novel, all the time. :smallsmile:

-O

But those maps aren't usually as detailed as this one.

Also, there's a higher quality version of the map on the Cartographer's Guild (not terribly bigger but just enough to make it less fuzzy).

Sebastrd
2013-08-19, 03:10 PM
Um, the spellplague was just a cheap marketing gimick. And it was aimed right at the Realms Haters with a ''Look, wow, we took the setting you hate, wow, and made it super awesome uber coolz, so now you can stop hating and like it!" And like all such gimicks, it is a slap in the face to all the fans of the setting where they say ''eh, you all suck, get lost''.

Um, that was exactly my point, stated with less snark and hyperbole.

A) Many players did NOT want to play in the world of the novels, and

B) WotC was NOT catering to the market that did want to play in the world of the novels when they created the Spellplague.

Wolf_Haley
2013-08-19, 04:00 PM
I just hope the FR Realms as is right now continues in some way, would like to see it divorced from FR nad used as it's own thing, that way everyone wins.

Yora
2013-08-20, 03:50 AM
I don't even begin to understand what that's supposed to mean? Making Forgotten Realms Realms not part of Forgotten Realms?

Lorsa
2013-08-20, 06:45 AM
I think he means that there should be many instances of FR, some in which large world-shattering events have occurred and some in which it hasn't.

EDIT: Or possibly a few select events.

Narco
2013-08-22, 04:54 PM
This conversation baffles me.

"I don't like popular setting X. Too many high level NPC's/Too many RSE's. Instead of finding a different setting to play in, the parent company should change the setting itself to cater to my preferred play-style."

Maybe I'm confused.

AuraTwilight
2013-08-22, 05:55 PM
The confusion is that you're mixing up personal preference with people trying to make actual criticisms about the setting's writing quality, not just its writing style.

Narco
2013-08-22, 06:36 PM
I don't have a problem with criticism. But there is a difference between saying FR is not my cup of tea, and these are the things I don't like about it and saying that the progress of the meta-plot diverges further and further from my campaign, making the books more useless for me and then criticizing the marketing strategy. As if the marketing strategy is to cater to the wildly diverging campaigns of every person playing in FR.

There are worlds to play in that don't have huge RSE's and tons of high level NPC's. It seems like you could play in one of those worlds and not have to deal with these issues.

AuraTwilight
2013-08-22, 08:22 PM
I don't have a problem with criticism. But there is a difference between saying FR is not my cup of tea, and these are the things I don't like about it and saying that the progress of the meta-plot diverges further and further from my campaign, making the books more useless for me and then criticizing the marketing strategy.

If you don't have a problem with criticism, then why are you fine with the first statement (which isn't criticism) and not the second one (which is actual criticism)?


As if the marketing strategy is to cater to the wildly diverging campaigns of every person playing in FR.

No one said it should CATER to them, but alienating fanbases isn't something WOTC wants to or should be doing.



There are worlds to play in that don't have huge RSE's and tons of high level NPC's. It seems like you could play in one of those worlds and not have to deal with these issues.

You're right. It's also irrelevant. The fact that there are alternatives doesn't change the fact that the product has flaws that hinder it's potential as a franchise.

jedipotter
2013-08-22, 08:49 PM
Um, that was exactly my point, stated with less snark and hyperbole.

A) Many players did NOT want to play in the world of the novels, and

B) WotC was NOT catering to the market that did want to play in the world of the novels when they created the Spellplague.

What?

Well, just take all the things that make FR unique....and hated: More gods then every other setting combined, tons of high level characters, tons of high level magic and huge powerful places. And what did the Spellplague do? It got rid of every single one of them. So when WotC killed off 99% of all the great and powerful NPC's of the Realms and made it an Ebberon-stlye ''oh no a goblin with a sharp stick is attacking the town and everyone in the world is a pathetic zero level commoner, oh only if there were some super awesome player character's to be the Big Dang Heroes'' just who were they targeting? It was not the Realms fans, it was the Realms haters and Ebberon lovers. When WotC said ''oh, like 99% of the gods die so it is easy to keep track of the gods now'', just who was the target: the Realms fan that loves having several hundred gods or the hater/Ebberon fan who likes ''the one god of evil for the whole world''.

TuggyNE
2013-08-22, 09:12 PM
What?

Well, just take all the things that make FR unique....and hated: More gods then every other setting combined, tons of high level characters, tons of high level magic and huge powerful places. And what did the Spellplague do? It got rid of every single one of them. So when WotC killed off 99% of all the great and powerful NPC's of the Realms and made it an Ebberon-stlye ''oh no a goblin with a sharp stick is attacking the town and everyone in the world is a pathetic zero level commoner, oh only if there were some super awesome player character's to be the Big Dang Heroes'' just who were they targeting? It was not the Realms fans, it was the Realms haters and Ebberon lovers. When WotC said ''oh, like 99% of the gods die so it is easy to keep track of the gods now'', just who was the target: the Realms fan that loves having several hundred gods or the hater/Ebberon fan who likes ''the one god of evil for the whole world''.

You're not disagreeing at all, you know. Sebastrd was saying that the Spellplague was intended to dump the FR lore fans ("those who want to play in the world of the novels") in favor of others. That's also what you're saying.

DeltaEmil
2013-08-22, 09:20 PM
@jedipotter: You're making statements about Eberron that makes it look like you don't have any experience with it.

Eberron is nothing like the Forgotten Realms of 4th edition.

Forgotten Realms 4th edition is a (terribly and badly done) Points-of-Light setting, in the style of Nentyr Vale and Dark Sun (with the two being better done simply because the designers learned how not to botch it up like the Forgotten Realms).

Eberron is all about taking D&D 3.5's assumed wannabe-simulationism-crap and hodge podge rules and putting them into a setting that actually uses most of that stuff, set in a fantasy-post-World War 1-world, where people travel in magical lightning trains and flying airships with flaming rings and stuff, there is magic abound, magic items are common, and clerics cast spells because of their Ideals as stated in the D&D 3.5 core books. That's Eberron's charm.

In 4th edition, Eberron is still all that (with a few hackneyed additions like dragonborn, eladrin, and tieflings), but since D&D 4th edition doesn't pretend that its rules are world physics, Eberron is nothing special in D&D 4th edition. It's the complete opposite of the Points-of-Light concept.

The changes to the Forgotten Realms were not at all for the Eberron fans.

Making a Forgotten Realms PoL might have worked, might not have worked. The designers tried, they failed.

The tragedy is that unfortunately, they still make the Forgotten Realms the flagship-setting. People that dislike the Forgotten Realms dislike it anyway, and don't want it as the flagship-setting, and fans of the Forgotten Realms don't want it to be the flagship-setting either, because that means that there will always a bunch of Realms-shaking-Events, and come a new edition, a new Times-of-Troubles/Spellplage/Sundering/Unmaking/Destruction/Rebirth/Remaking/Returning/Shaking/Rejoining/Age-of-Anarchy/Resundering/Death-of-the-Overdeity/Death-of-Mystra-XIII/Moonpocalypse/Supershadowweave/New-Buzzword-for-the-next-RSE.

cabbagesquirrel
2013-08-23, 12:52 AM
Things I don't want to see in FR next edition.

Shadar-Kai

Drizzt and the new reincarnations of everyone.

15,000 different types of Elf.

Things I want to see in FR next edition.

Less stuff happening in one borning NW corner of Faerun, and more stuff happening in the other 95% of it.

Mystra back with a decent reason why, unlike the crap reason that she wasn't. Oh Cyric killed her, next question. Blarg! But please, let Elminster just die and be dead already while we are at it.

Planescape. I'd take Planescape over FR.

Felhammer
2013-08-23, 01:20 AM
Let's avoid spoilers from a book that was released 2 weeks ago. Not everyone speed reads books or has had the chance to read the book yet. :smallsmile:

danatblair
2013-08-23, 09:47 AM
Well, honestly I don't see the point in playing in the novel and video game settings if you are going to ignore the novels and videogames. If you don't want the crazy power level and super high magic, use another setting. I am not a huge fan of playing in the realms, but I do enjoy the old video games set in it. I actually had a copy of the book for the seeting in 3e, but once 4e came out I was done.

The point of greyhawk was to have a generic setting. Ravenloft was Gothic and creepy. Dark sun looked cool, but I never got around to playing it. I didn't like Dragonlance, but i only played a 3,0 verson of it.

Really, each setting has a purpose. If you are going to say, "I want you to take a setting that is catering to another set of tastes and make it exactly like my set of tastes" then ummm okay. I guess they aren't allowed to make a setting that has flavor that doesn't cater to you.


I didn't see anything wrong with having a variety of settings that catered to different crowds and tastes. I would like a return to having more distinct settings that appealed to their own style. Whatever makes the most FR players happy works for me, more or less.


for me, placescape is a far bigger deal breaker than forgotten realms. Unless planescape comes back I'll probably pass on 5e in terms of book buying. I'll play in games my group runs, but i will not spend any money on it.

At that point, It I wanted to run planescape I could use 3.5/pathfinder instead.

obryn
2013-08-23, 10:24 AM
Well, honestly I don't see the point in playing in the novel and video game settings if you are going to ignore the novels and videogames.
Since the Realms is - absent the various weird metaplots and RSE's - an incredibly bland and generic setting, you kind of have a point. Because indeed, that's the only reason to play in the Realms.

However, since the Realms is apparently the default setting for Next, I think a pared down and simplified version would be useful. Say on the magnitude of the old grey box, where that's the only "canon."

-O

danatblair
2013-08-23, 10:46 AM
Since the Realms is - absent the various weird metaplots and RSE's - an incredibly bland and generic setting, you kind of have a point. Because indeed, that's the only reason to play in the Realms.

However, since the Realms is apparently the default setting for Next, I think a pared down and simplified version would be useful. Say on the magnitude of the old grey box, where that's the only "canon."

-O
Ah, I am getting caught up on 5e news, as I bolted ages ago from D and d. No matter how many times I tried 4e, it never became something I cared about or felt the urge to spend money on. I kinda liked encounters and I am in an against the giants thing, but it's been hard to schedule. Yeah, if it is the default basic setting blandness seems to make sense.

really, it just makes me miss greyhawk. I know there was pretty much nothing special about it at all. It was dull as cement that's been painted grey. But, by virtue of being anything but interesting it allowed the other settings to do their things and be as weird as they wanted.

I mean if FR is going to be all generic might as well just bring back greyhawk but have it get a revamp with mega wizards tossing mountains at each other until their face explodes and magic dies ... or something.

I mean, that way you'd have the boring starter setting (FR) and a crazy high magic setting of epic proportions where stuff is always happening (greyhawk). that would be a great idea ...

mostly, it doesn't offend me that a crazy stupid high magic setting exists. I just wish they would let it be, for the people enjoy that sort of thing. The base set doesn't need to be high magic and crazy. It really doesn't need to be that at all. I just don't get the point of nerfing FR, if some other setting is going to eventually take over it's old role of high magic shenanigans.

hamlet
2013-08-23, 11:44 AM
WOTC can't bring back Greyhawk. They're only part owners is my understanding.

LibraryOgre
2013-08-23, 12:05 PM
Since the Realms is - absent the various weird metaplots and RSE's - an incredibly bland and generic setting, you kind of have a point. Because indeed, that's the only reason to play in the Realms.


I disagree completely. I find the Realms to be a vibrant setting, with a lot of potential all over the place. While the core of the Realms is pretty standard Tolkien-influenced fantasy, that in no way makes it bland or generic. Given the scope of the material, you can almost always ask the question "Well, how are the X going to get involved?" If I'm doing something up near Phlan, how are the Red Wizards going to get involved? The Zhentarim? The Harpers? If I'm running straight Ruins of Adventure, I can throw in the Cult of the Dragon, because an evil undead metallic dragon with vast magical power is the kind of thing that makes them deliriously happy. Cormyr and Sembia are largely friendly... but what about the border between these two very different countries?

For generic? Do you honestly think that Krynn's Shinarae is going to react to things the same way that Waukeen or Tellene's The Coinlord would? That the Triad of Tyr, Torm, and Ilmater are just interchangeable with Bahamut? That there's no tension in druid orders containing Silvanus, Mielikki, Chauntea, and Malar? One of the best games I ever ran was, as a party came out of a dungeon, having them declared the targets of a Malarite hunt.

When I first read Lord of the Rings, it was just before the movies came out. I was bound and determined I would finish them before the movies came out, and, throughout, I had a very negative reaction to both Gimli and Legolas, because they seemed so horribly boring. Just another elf and a dwarf. It took me stopping to think about it to realize "They are not stereotypes. They are the archetypes on which later stereotypes were built." I maintain that the same can be said of the Realms. While it has some pretty clear Tolkienian influences, it has further influenced the creation of most settings for D&D, even if they were determined to be a reaction against Faerun.

obryn
2013-08-23, 12:12 PM
I disagree completely. I find the Realms to be a vibrant setting, with a lot of potential all over the place.
Yeah, I was snarking more than I was being serious. :smallsmile: I haven't liked the Realms very much past the very early days of 2e.

-O

danatblair
2013-08-23, 12:13 PM
WOTC can't bring back Greyhawk. They're only part owners is my understanding.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greyhawk#2008_to_present

http://thewertzone.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/worlds-of-d-greyhawk.html

I can 't find anything that confirms that. If anything, I can find the opposite. Gygax lost all rights to it. Tsr owned it in whole, so wizards should then.

Yora
2013-08-23, 12:16 PM
My personal problem that I have developed with Forgotten Realms is that everything is to neat and simple. You have the good guys and the bad guys. And the dwarves are all grumpy racists and the elves are all arrgogant racists. To me, that creates the appearance that in every situation you cearly know who is at fault, who has been wronged, who needs to get punished, and with whom you should side.
There seems to be a lack of a dynamic element, where you have to learn more about the specific circumstances of a situation and try to understand the motives of everyone involve and judge the appropriateness of their actions. In Forgotten Realms, such an element does not seem to exist. It even appears that the setting is designed specifically to avoid such situations ever from happening. They are not supposed to happen.

I think the reason not to use Greyhawk is that Greyhawk ended its prime back in the 80s. While the setting does have its fans, those are very likely the same people who still play BECMI or 1st Edition. People you'd want to reach with 4th or 5th edition are very unlikely to have any personal connection to Greyhawk.

obryn
2013-08-23, 12:25 PM
I think the reason not to use Greyhawk is that Greyhawk ended its prime back in the 80s. While the setting does have its fans, those are very likely the same people who still play BECMI or 1st Edition. People you'd want to reach with 4th or 5th edition are very unlikely to have any personal connection to Greyhawk.
I personally consider AD&D 1e and Greyhawk to be inextricably linked. It's the setting I like to use when running 1e, and it's hard to picture running Greyhawk in anything other than 1e. With all the classic adventures being set in Greyhawk, the DMG artifacts coming from the setting, etc. it's just hard for me to separate the two.

I'm sure people can, and I'm sure people do, but that's my own feelings on the subject.

-O

Sebastrd
2013-08-23, 12:29 PM
Well, just take all the things that make FR unique....and hated: More gods then every other setting combined, tons of high level characters, tons of high level magic and huge powerful places. And what did the Spellplague do? It got rid of every single one of them. So when WotC killed off 99% of all the great and powerful NPC's of the Realms and made it an Ebberon-stlye ''oh no a goblin with a sharp stick is attacking the town and everyone in the world is a pathetic zero level commoner, oh only if there were some super awesome player character's to be the Big Dang Heroes'' just who were they targeting? It was not the Realms fans, it was the Realms haters and Ebberon lovers. When WotC said ''oh, like 99% of the gods die so it is easy to keep track of the gods now'', just who was the target: the Realms fan that loves having several hundred gods or the hater/Ebberon fan who likes ''the one god of evil for the whole world''.


Well, honestly I don't see the point in playing in the novel and video game settings if you are going to ignore the novels and videogames. If you don't want the crazy power level and super high magic, use another setting.

It is possible to enjoy some aspects of a setting, but not enjoy others. It's even reasonable, if a product is not selling enough, to make changes that lots of people will enjoy even if a passionate few will hate them in order to increase sales. It's up to WotC to look at the numbers and make the best descision that can for their bottom line.

There are things that I love about the Forgotten Realms that are just not available in other settings:


There is a wealth of history about the FR going back thousands of years. A deep, fully realized history is great for DMs to draw from and can really help the world to come alive for the players.
There is a little bit of everything in FR - from climate to culture. If you get bored with a certain area, you can always take a break and head somewhere else without having to ditch the history and move to a whole new world.
FR sourcebooks are unique in that they drill down to a level of granularity that just isn't present in other settings. Literally, if you want to know how folks in a particular town wipe their arses, that information is available. As long as Ed is alive, he will continue working on the Realms. No other setting has that.
No setting in history has as much material available for it as the FR. There is no shortage of villains, evil organizations, secret societies, vile cults, cities with problems, etc.

However, there are some things I don't like. Namely, too many deities, too many and too regular RSEs, too many real-world cultures with the serial numbers filed off, a revolving door on the non-neutral position "goddess of magic", and too many Mary Sue/Gary Stu NPCs (it's not that they are high level, it's that they are overpowered, plot-armored meddlers).

I cannot just move on to a different setting that includes all the stuff I do like but not the stuff I don't. FR comes closest. Apparently, there were enough folks like me complaining and affecting sales of FR material that WotC decided to make a change. A change, by the way, that left the most iconic areas in the north of Faerun largely untouched, but wiped out all the afore-mentioned real-world rip-offs.

I realize there are folks who liked the Realms just the way they were. They are entitled to their opinions and to pressure WotC to appease them; but those of us who wanted to see changes are just as entitled to our opinions. Either way, somebody is going to be dissappointed, and WotC has to cater to the faction that will make them the most money, whichever faction that is.

danatblair
2013-08-23, 12:38 PM
My personal problem that I have developed with Forgotten Realms is that everything is to neat and simple. You have the good guys and the bad guys. And the dwarves are all grumpy racists and the elves are all arrgogant racists. To me, that creates the appearance that in every situation you cearly know who is at fault, who has been wronged, who needs to get punished, and with whom you should side.
There seems to be a lack of a dynamic element, where you have to learn more about the specific circumstances of a situation and try to understand the motives of everyone involve and judge the appropriateness of their actions. In Forgotten Realms, such an element does not seem to exist. It even appears that the setting is designed specifically to avoid such situations ever from happening. They are not supposed to happen.

I think the reason not to use Greyhawk is that Greyhawk ended its prime back in the 80s. While the setting does have its fans, those are very likely the same people who still play BECMI or 1st Edition. People you'd want to reach with 4th or 5th edition are very unlikely to have any personal connection to Greyhawk.

According to their whole an edition for everyone thing they were hyping a while back, Greyhawk fans would be among the people they would want to woo back I'd think. Unless they really have no interest in taking money from people for no other reason that it's been 15-30 years since they last took their money.

And again, I don't see a problem with a setting where sides exist. I don't see a problem where there is less ambiguity. I fully understand why you'd want those things . but I don't think every setting has to cater to them.

Again, I'm not really a big fan of FR, but I think a lot of the complaints against it amount to I want FR to cater to my tastes instead of having another setting that is more for me. I don't think FR is a good choice for a base setting, because it has a certain flavor to it. If there is talk about bringing back planescape and spell jammer it seems like they are shifting back to the model that tries out different settings at a faster pace. I just think turning Fr into the new greyhawk is a bit silly when they are making moves to bring back fans from other settings that have been gone for some time. If spell jammer's getting another chance then there should be room for fr and greyhawk to do what they do and appease their own core groups.

danatblair
2013-08-23, 12:50 PM
It is possible to enjoy some aspects of a setting, but not enjoy others. It's even reasonable, if a product is not selling enough, to make changes that lots of people will enjoy even if a passionate few will hate them in order to increase sales. It's up to WotC to look at the numbers and make the best descision that can for their bottom line.

There are things that I love about the Forgotten Realms that are just not available in other settings:


There is a wealth of history about the FR going back thousands of years. A deep, fully realized history is great for DMs to draw from and can really help the world to come alive for the players.
There is a little bit of everything in FR - from climate to culture. If you get bored with a certain area, you can always take a break and head somewhere else without having to ditch the history and move to a whole new world.
FR sourcebooks are unique in that they drill down to a level of granularity that just isn't present in other settings. Literally, if you want to know how folks in a particular town wipe their arses, that information is available. As long as Ed is alive, he will continue working on the Realms. No other setting has that.
No setting in history has as much material available for it as the FR. There is no shortage of villains, evil organizations, secret societies, vile cults, cities with problems, etc.

However, there are some things I don't like. Namely, too many deities, too many and too regular RSEs, too many real-world cultures with the serial numbers filed off, a revolving door on the non-neutral position "goddess of magic", and too many Mary Sue/Gary Stu NPCs (it's not that they are high level, it's that they are overpowered, plot-armored meddlers).

I cannot just move on to a different setting that includes all the stuff I do like but not the stuff I don't. FR comes closest. Apparently, there were enough folks like me complaining and affecting sales of FR material that WotC decided to make a change. A change, by the way, that left the most iconic areas in the north of Faerun largely untouched, but wiped out all the afore-mentioned real-world rip-offs.

I realize there are folks who liked the Realms just the way they were. They are entitled to their opinions and to pressure WotC to appease them; but those of us who wanted to see changes are just as entitled to our opinions. Either way, somebody is going to be dissappointed, and WotC has to cater to the faction that will make them the most money, whichever faction that is.
Yes, only one version gets published. Are you saying that you are certain that the faction that wants a depowered fr is the biggest. Fr is already the higher magic setting. Not making a game for the high magic types and turning fr into a middle of the road setting seems like it is aimed at removing 1. players who want crazy magic high fantasy stuff and 2. players who are fine with FR as is or pre-spell plague. (these groups may or may not overlap.) One side is going to end up getting disapointed, and unless I have missed on hearing about plans for a new setting full of high magic there is not anything resembling a consolation prize in the works for the other group.

edit: and really, the more i think about it ... turning fr into the base set is an iffy idea.

First, it makes the base book actually controversial. It makes the base book a war between fan factions when wizards wants and needs to unite people behind the edition.

Second, it devalues fr. I know that I never give a crap about the generic setting in the base book. I toss it out and just use the player stuff and call it good. I am always itching to see what is in the setting books and the expansions. I want to create new stuff. The material that I use the least, aside from mechanical descriptions, is the setting in the base book.

All that detail and rich history ... can now be glossed over by the people who buy the book in favor of the shinier settings.

Felhammer
2013-08-23, 01:00 PM
I've never really understood the hate Greyhawk receives. It's not that bland or that generic.

danatblair
2013-08-23, 01:08 PM
I've never really understood the hate Greyhawk receives. It's not that bland or that generic.

In 3e it was. I played in 2e, but didn't buy base books until 3e. I ... don't really recall much flavor that was in the base book. I know it was there, but I never really cared too much about that setting. Whereas I had to pay money for the base book, no matter what, buying a setting meant i had spent additional money. i had additional incentive to not use the material in the base book.

And I do agree. While I am calling it bland, I honestly think it did it's job well ..
I was sad to see it go and I do think it actually has a role that it plays. The last time I really recall it having flavor was back in 2e, but that was ages ago. I wouldn't mind a return to that.

note i do have to admit that i did not play lviing greyhawk so I do not know how interesting the setting was in that format.

Craft (Cheese)
2013-08-23, 01:47 PM
Again, I'm not really a big fan of FR, but I think a lot of the complaints against it amount to I want FR to cater to my tastes instead of having another setting that is more for me. I don't think FR is a good choice for a base setting, because it has a certain flavor to it. If there is talk about bringing back planescape and spell jammer it seems like they are shifting back to the model that tries out different settings at a faster pace. I just think turning Fr into the new greyhawk is a bit silly when they are making moves to bring back fans from other settings that have been gone for some time. If spell jammer's getting another chance then there should be room for fr and greyhawk to do what they do and appease their own core groups.


Honestly, my prediction is that we're going to see mountains and mountains of material for FR and only the token efforts for other settings at absolute best. It wouldn't surprise me at all if they abandoned that promise and Planescape/Spelljammer/Dark Sun/Ravenloft/Eberron/Et al. received absolutely nothing.

danatblair
2013-08-23, 01:59 PM
Honestly, my prediction is that we're going to see mountains and mountains of material for FR and only the token efforts for other settings at absolute best. It wouldn't surprise me at all if they abandoned that promise and Planescape/Spelljammer/Dark Sun/Ravenloft/Eberron/Et al. received absolutely nothing.

I would not be shocked if you are correct. Espescially if the approach of trying to cover all times is taken, I could see the books skewing FR

sidenote:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?316394-5E-Forgotten-Realms-what-will-it-look-like

this conversation but at enworld.

apparently they are going to possibly go for a Star wars play in any era approach. though, as I bought the star wars 3.0 book I have seen how awesome it is to get 1/3-1/5 of a book because they are trying to please everyone from every time. Though other Star wars game have done it better, and it could sorta work. I still don't think it's all that great cause it just invites arguments between the pro and anti spell plague factions like the original trilogy and prequel fans (or the zahn era and the yuzong vong fans).

obryn
2013-08-23, 02:04 PM
I've never really understood the hate Greyhawk receives. It's not that bland or that generic.
I think it's because it literally is the AD&D 1e world, and that 1e has filtered down through every successive edition so much that its unique bits are kind of "stuff about D&D" now.

The main factors that distinguish it in my mind are.... (1) Alignments as actual factions with meaning in the world, (2) Various human cultures and migrations with their own pantheons, (3) Close involvement of extraplanar beings (mostly demons/devils) in the goings-on of the world, (4) The importance of magical artifacts as core elements of nations' might, (5) The Circle of Eight and importance of "Neutrality", (6) all the good classic AD&D modules as adventure sites, (7) The best map in D&D history, and (8) The city of Greyhawk itself.

Most of the rest has been folded into D&D pretty thoroughly.

-O

LibraryOgre
2013-08-23, 02:23 PM
Yeah, I was snarking more than I was being serious. :smallsmile: I haven't liked the Realms very much past the very early days of 2e.

You'll note I said earlier I play pre-ToT, with a couple changes. ;-)


My personal problem that I have developed with Forgotten Realms is that everything is to neat and simple. You have the good guys and the bad guys. And the dwarves are all grumpy racists and the elves are all arrgogant racists. To me, that creates the appearance that in every situation you cearly know who is at fault, who has been wronged, who needs to get punished, and with whom you should side.

I think this is too simplistic. While there is a lot of black and white in the setting, there's also a lot of conflict that can go the other way.

Take a look at the Vast Swamp, on the border of Cormyr. Now, Cormyr would love to drain that swamp, and of all the countries, they're probably in the best position to do something like this, having a strong organization of military engineers, wizards, and clerics.

However, look at the other side. Who's going to want to keep the swamp intact? Well, some of those will be the druids of Silvanus and Eldath. The fenmen, who've lived there for generations, might also oppose. The Kingdom says that it has to take these people's homes and holy places from them for the greater good... the fenmen say "**** off, this is our land".

If you frame the conflict as the Zhentarim v. the Harpers, it's always going to come up black and white, because the Zhentarim are supported by the priesthood of Bane and the Harpers work with various good deities. But this is only really possible when you ignore the vast grey between the two. There's great places to play where you've got grey, especially if you challenge stereotypes... like LE/N Hobgoblins looking to set up a community that better meets someone's greedy needs than the current regime, and who further their evilish plans by being good neighbors and building good will.

jedipotter
2013-08-23, 05:01 PM
@jedipotter: You're making statements about Eberron that makes it look like you don't have any experience with it.

Eberron is all about taking D&D 3.5's assumed wannabe-simulationism-crap and hodge podge rules and putting them into a setting that actually uses most of that stuff, set in a fantasy-post-World War 1-world, where people travel in magical lightning trains and flying airships with flaming rings and stuff, there is magic abound, magic items are common, and clerics cast spells because of their Ideals as stated in the D&D 3.5 core books. That's Eberron's charm.

Well, Eberron was made for the Forgotten Realms haters. Just take:

It is a very tiny setting (covering like what four islands?), It is a godless setting, It is a powerful NPC less setting.

And it not like they really made magic common in Eberron. After all they stayed with the 'stuck in the Dark Ages' idea. Sure they made a lightning train, too bad they did not just create food and water.

Lord Raziere
2013-08-23, 05:16 PM
...How is Khorvaire with all its nations, wild Xen'drik, Aerenal, Argonessen and Sarlona, a vast underground labyrinth known as Khyber, thirteen orbiting planes, numerous cities and at least one archipelago, "four islands"? :smallconfused:

DeltaEmil
2013-08-23, 05:32 PM
@jedipotter: It is quite clear that your knowledge about Eberron is based mostly on hearsay and at best a cursory glance through the books. Else you would have known that the Halfling House of Ghallanda is specialized in doing create food and water, and their more experienced members are even capable of creating heroes' feast as part of their service. Your assumption that Eberron is some kind of "conspiracy" against the Forgotten Realms is unfounded. The Forgotten Realms 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and further editions will never be like Eberron. The most vocal fans of the Forgotten Realms don't want it, its hater don't want it either, and Wizards of the Coast has no desire to do that.

An "eberronization" of the Forgotten Realms won't happen. No worries.

AuraTwilight
2013-08-23, 05:52 PM
Well, Eberron was made for the Forgotten Realms haters.

No it wasn't. It was the winner of a contest where several people sent in campaign settings and one was chosen to become official. The person who wrote Eberron is a very vocal fan of Forgotten Realms.

You've clearly never read a thing about Eberron, ever.

tasw
2013-08-23, 10:12 PM
I'm starting a new E6 campaign this weekend and this thread has inspired me to set it in the forgotten realms.

I like the detailed map and history, and the various well detailed power groups.

But all the NPC's will be remade (starting just in our section of the world) as E6 charters just like the players.

I think the challenge of re-imagining the realms that way should be a lot of fun and make the best use possible of the good aspects of FR and get rid of the most objectionable.

So assuming this goes well that will likely become what I would like to see in FR5. I real PoL style setting, forgotten realms not blown up and restarted but suffering from a slow death to the forces of darkness that abound in it. With one "point" falling after another while the campaign becomes about saving the area the people know.

Sort of a post apocalyptic FR, but a realistic apocalypse, in so much as thats possible in a fantasy setting.

obryn
2013-08-24, 08:15 AM
But all the NPC's will be remade (starting just in our section of the world) as E6 charters just like the players.

I think the challenge of re-imagining the realms that way should be a lot of fun and make the best use possible of the good aspects of FR and get rid of the most objectionable.
Random thought here... But with the acknowledged decrease in the (previously insurmountable) gap between high-level and low-level characters in Next, this may be exactly the sort of campaign FR 5e will be.

-O

Craft (Cheese)
2013-08-24, 09:14 AM
Random thought here... But with the acknowledged decrease in the (previously insurmountable) gap between high-level and low-level characters in Next, this may be exactly the sort of campaign FR 5e will be.

-O

Or they'll just pretend that all of their 20th level mary sues are still invincible demigods and have it break down hilariously.

tasw
2013-08-24, 10:54 AM
Random thought here... But with the acknowledged decrease in the (previously insurmountable) gap between high-level and low-level characters in Next, this may be exactly the sort of campaign FR 5e will be.

-O

Thats probably my biggest hope at this point.


Or they'll just pretend that all of their 20th level mary sues are still invincible demigods and have it break down hilariously.

And what I think they'll probably do. Unfortunately.

Felhammer
2013-08-24, 11:48 PM
Forgotten Realms 4th edition is a (terribly and badly done) Points-of-Light setting, in the style of Nentyr Vale and Dark Sun (with the two being better done simply because the designers learned how not to botch it up like the Forgotten Realms).

The Designers didn't learn how to better fashion a Points of Light setting, they were just using/creating settings that better exemplified the tenants of Points of Light.

Dark Sun was points of Light long before that concept was ever given a name. The Nentyr Vale was created specifically with the intent of crafting a setting around Points of Light.

Forgotten Realms was never designed or fathomed to be Points of Light. The Designers failed even after the hackneyed attempts to cram their brainchild into a setting that stubbornly refused to embrace the genre.

You simply cannot take Oranges and make a delicious Apple Pie.

SiuiS
2013-08-25, 08:11 AM
I personally consider AD&D 1e and Greyhawk to be inextricably linked. It's the setting I like to use when running 1e, and it's hard to picture running Greyhawk in anything other than 1e. With all the classic adventures being set in Greyhawk, the DMG artifacts coming from the setting, etc. it's just hard for me to separate the two.

I'm sure people can, and I'm sure people do, but that's my own feelings on the subject.

... Yeah. Yeah, that's kinda how I'm starting to feel.

I need a table, bad. All this digital stuff lacks that certain something, I think. :smallfrown:


(5) The Circle of Eight and importance of "Neutrality"

Huh? What's this?

Also, Forgotten realms actually suffers a bit form this now. So much generic 3.5 mechanical stuff started out as region-specific crunch and just got folded in due to the "Don't worry about these prereqs if you don't use Faerun" caveat. Eberron was heading that way, as well.

obryn
2013-08-25, 09:03 AM
... Yeah. Yeah, that's kinda how I'm starting to feel.

I need a table, bad. All this digital stuff lacks that certain something, I think. :smallfrown:
Reading Greyhawk - even looking at the map - is dangerous for me because I tend to throw myself into an AD&D read-fest. :smallsmile: It often culminates in planning a one-shot. And I really need to run RC D&D before AD&D again. And even more, to run this Next playtest and work my campaign towards a wrap-up.


Huh? What's this?
All those iconic wizards - Bigby, Mordenkainen, Rary, Otto, Otiluke, etc. - whose names are splattered all over the spell list.

Neutrality is big for Gary. More or less, he considered it a stance all its own, working against the others. In his stuff, they tend to be the only reasonable ones.

-O

Tvtyrant
2013-08-25, 09:41 AM
I wish they would run a campaign set in Netherese times. Battling Orcs and Phaerimm from atop flying citadels? Waging gnome/dwarven slave revolts against monstrous human masters? Yes please.

Actually if they really wanted to do the game justice they should just make a bunch of different time based campaigns, so you can play anywhen you want.

Chambers
2013-08-25, 09:45 AM
I wish they would run a campaign set in Netherese times. Battling Orcs and Phaerimm from atop flying citadels? Waging gnome/dwarven slave revolts against monstrous human masters? Yes please.

Actually if they really wanted to do the game justice they should just make a bunch of different time based campaigns, so you can play anywhen you want.

Netheril: Empire of Magic. (http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Netheril:_Empire_of_Magic)
Cormanthyr: Empire of the Elves. (http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Cormanthyr:_Empire_of_the_Elves)

Tvtyrant
2013-08-25, 09:47 AM
Netheril: Empire of Magic. (http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Netheril:_Empire_of_Magic)
Cormanthyr: Empire of the Elves. (http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Cormanthyr:_Empire_of_the_Elves)

I own it. It is certainly not 5th edition :P

Chambers
2013-08-25, 09:53 AM
Ah. You didn't mention 5e in the post so...yeah.

Tvtyrant
2013-08-25, 09:55 AM
Ah. You didn't mention 5e in the post so...yeah.

In a thread about what you want out of 5th edition? :P

Plus the rules for Netheril casters were wonky and broken. 12th level spells? What were they thinking?

Hopeless
2013-08-27, 05:05 AM
If this doesn't convince you it's awesome, nothing will. (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZIKFGnHeXGY/T3JCnVKmlKI/AAAAAAAAAvI/dmWyi-jOvGI/s640/new_Iron_Kingdoms_rpg_by_n_ossandon_nezt-d4la4gp.jpg)

When I think of eberron I remember the trailer to a Final Fantasy game, the one where it starts off with the bad guys having won and there's airships, airbikes and the opening theme track always reminds me of the Last War and the destruction of Cyre...

Yora
2013-08-27, 05:32 AM
Maybe the FF12 intro?

Hopeless
2013-08-27, 05:47 AM
Personally, I would just solve the Elminster problem by saying that the Elminster books are a parallel universe, and that in my game, Elminster is just an ordinary non-magical scholar.

everything else would be the same, its just that Elminster is a mundane scholar and therefore can only help you by giving you some information he nows.

Now you're making me want to run a game where the major npcs are a quintet of female sorceresses, three of whom have turned evil and the one sorceress they all fear and as a result everybody in the setting fears turns up and is revealed to be a dimension hopping sorceress who geeks out after mistaking Elminster for Ed Greenwood!:smallbiggrin:

Hopeless
2013-08-27, 08:04 AM
My point isn't invalid just because you say it is. The other books include things that a person might want to use but advance metaplot. Like I said before, what if there's a cool thing I want to use but can't because of it's baggage?

And telling me "Just don't buy any more books" is essentially the same as "don't play in Forgotten Realms at all", which is equivalent to admitting it's a bad campaign setting because it won't be moving units.

White Wolf had more going on that World of Darkness, btw, so your last statement is invalid. Forgotten Realms is the 'default' of D&D as far as settings are concerned, and before Ebberon, was pretty much the only official campaign setting 3.5 edition really supported.

Corrected that last point:smallsmile:

Hopeless
2013-08-27, 08:15 AM
I thought I would point out first; I don't play in the FR, hardcore or otherwise.

Maintaining the status quo means that nothing the PCs do even matters and that every effort that gets made just gets pushed under the rug. Seriously, read the d*** meta-plot bit about the so called concerns of the mighty. Its complete garbage because it assumes all of the various NPCs are capable of handling each other on equal terms which is not even true. Both Moonshine(manshoon) and Sassam(Szass Tam) could kill elminister, no problem. Other than Mystra, nothing is stopping them other than some dumb deal that makes it impossible for them to do anything about el. It is the same for the other side.

Do you think either of those two want Elminster's girlfriend hunting them?:smallsmile:

Seriously if you want to run it that way, go ahead ultimately the only thing a dm needs to worry about is what happens in their campaign.

Unless you want to keep it as close to WOTC's version it really doesn't matter if your latest purchase doesn't match your vision, make use of what you want and let the more canon fanatical players realise this isn't their Faerun, its one where their actions matter.


Evil Gods/Goddesses are notorious for not allowing people who failed them to come back to life. If you screw up doing something for them, you aren't coming back. Resurrections are expensive and out of rich of almost everybody except high ranking clergy and wealthy folk.

Watch Hawk the Slayer and repeat the above...:smallwink:


FR was a money maker and it has now become bloated (3.5 one, not 4e one) with lore and other garbage. Its more interesting to read about stuff in FR than actually play in my opinion and so I don't play in it.

So you'd say the 4e version is better?

So I was wondering what people think about the Sundering especially the Murder in Baldur's Gate release?

obryn
2013-08-27, 08:30 AM
So you'd say the 4e version is better?

So I was wondering what people think about the Sundering especially the Murder in Baldur's Gate release?
I think the 4e Realms as presented in Neverwinter is pretty great. The 4e Realms from the FRCS has some terrible presentation problems, like opening the setting with an extended adventure way at the front of the book. And mushy-looking maps. And overall just not a very good explanation of what all this is about, anyway.

But as for MiBG... I am not a Realms fan, but so far it's pretty good? It's an incredibly complex adventure to run. I've been doing this for 30 years, and it's among the most challenging pre-written adventures I've ever worked with because it basically puts out a string of situations and lets the DM figure out how the players could get involved with them. It's good, but wow.

It's also weird that it's a 1st-level adventure with such world-shattering events going on, but eh... You can't exactly make your first adventure for a new edition start at 12th, you know?

-O