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silverwolfer
Senior Scribe
789 Posts |
 Posted - 02 Jul 2013 : 03:43:06
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If you need a villain with no back history, instead of pulling it out of your rump, you pull it out of the feywild.
the gods, seem to have learned a lesson from the spellplauge and are less involved personally.
I have utterly no clue what is going on with locations I use to love, and have given up trying to connect the dots, as they are rather large.
The far realm is an awesome place.
Warlocks have more meat when it comes to why they do what they do, and how pacts are made.
Amadeus is a great god, but should be treated as a guest star, and return back to the red pit he rules.
I miss my old friends mask, mystara and heck was nice to see malar come back.
With less mega powerful things running about to save the day, was nice to meet new friends and heros in the realms, that did not get overshadowed.
The drow went poof? Where the heck did they go, almost no books seem to even touch them.
The feywild really seems to be the new chaotic evil power in the market, asleast now that the demons went bye bye.
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sfdragon
Great Reader
2285 Posts |
Posted - 02 Jul 2013 : 04:00:19
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wht 4e taught me about the realms was that their marketing personal here on earth messed up.
the blood war is returning,mystra has returned, Helm is coming back and the lord of shadows is wanting you to know that he'll be picking your pocket soon....... |
why is being a wizard like being a drow? both are likely to find a dagger in the back from a rival or one looking to further his own goals, fame and power
My FR fan fiction
Magister's GAmbit
http://steelfiredragon.deviantart.com/gallery/33539234 |
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Eilserus
Master of Realmslore
USA
1446 Posts |
Posted - 02 Jul 2013 : 04:12:18
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I think 5E for the Realms is going to be great. One of my old gripes back in the day when buying books was seeing recycled or semi-recycled lore and info. I know it upset alot of people, but with the 100 year jump, most the NPC's are dead and when I buy say a Dalelands supplement or whatever they put out, it's going to be all new info. Least that's what I'm hoping for.
I hear you on the Devil God thing. Hopefully Ao rips that divinity right out of him. Or maybe Mystra will. I'm fine with demons/devils and all that jazz, but if they take center stage as real religions it makes the Realms darker than I prefer. Demons and devils don't need priests walking around. We have lunatics like the priesthood of Cyric to fill their role.
Hellgate Keep and Myth Drannor got it right with the whole outerplanar creatures in Faerun. And if there were tons of devils and demons in the Realms...shouldn't Faerun be getting ready to tear off and slide into the Abyss or the Nine Hells? Elminster was musing about how many rifts are open in the Realms pumping out monsters due to pacts that warlocks have made. I'm very curious to know where that thought is going, though maybe the Sundering will fix those rifts.
The drow should be gone from center stage in 5E I think. One of Ed's Forging the Realms articles states that the power of the drow seems to be waning. Makes sense to me, as they suffered horrific losses in Lolth's insane war of extermination on the other drow pantheon. |
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silverwolfer
Senior Scribe
789 Posts |
Posted - 02 Jul 2013 : 04:43:15
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| but ..but..but what will drizzit complain about now... |
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Mournblade
Master of Realmslore
USA
1288 Posts |
Posted - 02 Jul 2013 : 05:30:10
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quote:
Originally posted by Eilserus
I think 5E for the Realms is going to be great. One of my old gripes back in the day when buying books was seeing recycled or semi-recycled lore and info. I know it upset alot of people, but with the 100 year jump, most the NPC's are dead and when I buy say a Dalelands supplement or whatever they put out, it's going to be all new info. Least that's what I'm hoping for.
I hear you on the Devil God thing. Hopefully Ao rips that divinity right out of him. Or maybe Mystra will. I'm fine with demons/devils and all that jazz, but if they take center stage as real religions it makes the Realms darker than I prefer. Demons and devils don't need priests walking around. We have lunatics like the priesthood of Cyric to fill their role.
Hellgate Keep and Myth Drannor got it right with the whole outerplanar creatures in Faerun. And if there were tons of devils and demons in the Realms...shouldn't Faerun be getting ready to tear off and slide into the Abyss or the Nine Hells? Elminster was musing about how many rifts are open in the Realms pumping out monsters due to pacts that warlocks have made. I'm very curious to know where that thought is going, though maybe the Sundering will fix those rifts.
The drow should be gone from center stage in 5E I think. One of Ed's Forging the Realms articles states that the power of the drow seems to be waning. Makes sense to me, as they suffered horrific losses in Lolth's insane war of extermination on the other drow pantheon.
I like new information but I don't want replacement information. The 100 year time jump was new jsut for the sake of being new.
I have to say I am happy about the sundering. I am hoping to see alot of the mistakes that the 4e realms made fade away back into the standard realms. Hopefully Abeir will be LONG gone.
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A wizard is Never late Frodo Baggins. Nor is he Early. A wizard arrives precisely when he means to... |
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Tyrant
Senior Scribe
USA
586 Posts |
Posted - 02 Jul 2013 : 05:35:04
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quote:
Originally posted by silverwolfer
If you need a villain with no back history, instead of pulling it out of your rump, you pull it out of the feywild.
Being primarily a book reader and not an RPG player, I really don't see that.
quote:
I have utterly no clue what is going on with locations I use to love, and have given up trying to connect the dots, as they are rather large.
A lot of places have gotten coverage somewhere. I don't think there are that many places you can point to and have no idea what is happening there. The back story as to how it got to be the way it is now may be missing, but the present seemed at least superficially covered.
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Amadeus is a great god, but should be treated as a guest star, and return back to the red pit he rules.
I thought he was killed by Antonio Salieri.
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The drow went poof? Where the heck did they go, almost no books seem to even touch them.
They are in the Drizzt books and I believe a couple of others.
quote:
The feywild really seems to be the new chaotic evil power in the market, asleast now that the demons went bye bye.
I don't believe the demons left. Errtu and others have put in appearances. I also never got the vibe that the Feywild was chaotic evil or was somehow meant to take the place of the Abyss.
quote:
but ..but..but what will drizzit complain about now...
Being dead? His friends being dead? Artemis not being around to continue their bromance? Being a Drow? I'm sure he won't want for a cause to complain.
quote:
Originally posted by Eilserus
I hear you on the Devil God thing. Hopefully Ao rips that divinity right out of him. Or maybe Mystra will. I'm fine with demons/devils and all that jazz, but if they take center stage as real religions it makes the Realms darker than I prefer. Demons and devils don't need priests walking around. We have lunatics like the priesthood of Cyric to fill their role.
Can Ao?* More importantly, why would he after allowing it for a century? Mystra's had her hand slapped for stepping out of bounds already so I don't see her making a move. At full power and before he was a god she didn't stick around to see how a fight between them would go and he won't be stupid enough to leave his home plane.
If Asmodeus is brought low it will likely come from the machinations of either Mephistopheles or his daughter or some combination of the two.
I honestly don't understand why people have a problem with him being a god beyond some need to differentiate between evil gods and devils/demons or "it used to not be that way" (nothing wrong with that, by the way, but just be up front about it). It's not like Bane, for instance, is suddenly less evil because Asmodeus is also a god. I'm sure people have reasons and I'm not trying to say that they are unimportant, just that I don't get it.
*I say can he because the impression I get is that the Hells connect to more than one world. If that is the case, the overgod of one world should not be able to strip the divinity from a multi world power. Bar him from entering the Realms? Sure. Doing much to him beyond that, it wouldn't make much sense in my opinion.
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Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
-The Sith Code
Teenage Sith zombies, Tulkh thought-how in the moons of Bogden had it all started? Every so often, the universe must just get bored and decide to really cut loose. -Star Wars: Red Harvest |
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silverwolfer
Senior Scribe
789 Posts |
Posted - 02 Jul 2013 : 05:57:13
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| What is the point of a evil god, if you have the LITERAL master of evil *lawful version* that is a god |
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Eilserus
Master of Realmslore
USA
1446 Posts |
Posted - 02 Jul 2013 : 06:37:17
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If I remember right, the only reason Mystra held back on saving Elminster was because Asmodeus would have ordered the invasion of Faerun. Save the man, but lose the planet.
I think Ao could do it if he wished. He banished the entire pantheon and stripped them of their godhood. That's alot of deities man handled without any effort. He has referenced Faerun as one of his favorite creations, inferring there are others. And also he can exist outside of space and time, so really a century is meaningless if time doesn't exist where he is at. I don't think Ao would act though unless it was an issue with the balance.
I imagine he won't destroy Asmodeus, but it's entirely possible he'll strip him of his godhood once all this Sundering business is over. Or he might not, it's really tough to say. Something is most likely going to happen if the Blood War is going to reignite and maybe its driven purely by his new divine nature. |
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silverwolfer
Senior Scribe
789 Posts |
Posted - 02 Jul 2013 : 06:54:49
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| is Asmodeus a creation of faerun sphere, or does he live outside of it as a multi sphere power? |
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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire
USA
15724 Posts |
Posted - 02 Jul 2013 : 14:30:49
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4e taught me how to 'think outside the box', if anything.
I've always done that (I think), but with some 4e lore I had to really work hard to make it fit my own model, or to even have it make sense (in lieu of previous lore). However, by making me work that much harder, it made me envision new ways to spin things, and how to use the planes, etc - stuff I've never considered before.
It also drove a wedge between me and canon... and I don't think thats such a bad thing, from a gaming perspective.
So all-in-all, I don't think of 4e as a D&D edition, so much as a re-training exercise for DMs. Some of us were getting lazy (with lore, not creating NPCs, which actually became epically harder in 3e). In other words, 4e made me work harder, just to ignore it. But I have to say it did unlock ideas about stuff I hadn't thought of before.
Hell, I don't even throw-up a little when I see the word 'Far Realms' anymore.  |
"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone
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Edited by - Markustay on 02 Jul 2013 14:32:11 |
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Seravin
Master of Realmslore
Canada
1303 Posts |
Posted - 02 Jul 2013 : 15:18:07
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"If I remember right, the only reason Mystra held back on saving Elminster was because Asmodeus would have ordered the invasion of Faerun. Save the man, but lose the planet."
I've re-read Elminster in Hell a few years ago, and as I remember Mystra came into that level of hell (it wasn't the 9th where Asmodeus dwells, was it?) and started blasting away at everything but her presence and spells were causing tears between the planes that could have left portals to hell and Faerun wide open. She didn't want that to happen so she left and sent a super-beefed up Simbul to rescue El instead with less collateral damage. |
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Diffan
Great Reader
USA
4487 Posts |
Posted - 02 Jul 2013 : 16:57:10
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4E taught me not to be a slave to Canon and use it however I see fit. It taught me that Canon is just another "thing" or tool to be used at a whim and not something to maintain or strive to keep consistant because, frankly, it isn't. 4E taught me that Magic rules for D&D are not consistant within the framwork of the overall setting narrative. This means that I didn't need to kill the Weave or Mystra to allow 4E magic to work, it would've worked just fine with these eleemnts in place.
4E taught me that the heroes of the story I'm telling are FAR more important than the ones littered throughout the FR settings books and it's OK if these people aren't there or are non-existant or (*gasp*) even weak and desire the PCs to help because the problem is far greater than they can overcome.
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Diffan's NPG Generator: FR NPC Generator
E6 Options: Epic 6 Campaign |
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Aulduron
Learned Scribe
USA
343 Posts |
Posted - 02 Jul 2013 : 17:11:26
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| Mozart is a God? |
"Those with talent become wizards, Those without talent spend their lives praying for it"
-Procopio Septus |
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Irennan
Great Reader
Italy
3821 Posts |
Posted - 02 Jul 2013 : 17:28:59
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quote:
Originally posted by Diffan
4E taught me not to be a slave to Canon and use it however I see fit. It taught me that Canon is just another "thing" or tool to be used at a whim and not something to maintain or strive to keep consistant because, frankly, it isn't. 4E taught me that Magic rules for D&D are not consistant within the framwork of the overall setting narrative. This means that I didn't need to kill the Weave or Mystra to allow 4E magic to work, it would've worked just fine with these eleemnts in place.
4E taught me that the heroes of the story I'm telling are FAR more important than the ones littered throughout the FR settings books and it's OK if these people aren't there or are non-existant or (*gasp*) even weak and desire the PCs to help because the problem is far greater than they can overcome.
I fail to see why 4e and randomly destroying stuff were needed to realize this obvious point. As I see it, the problem with canon has never been game focused, but setting focused and concerned many of the people who enjoyed the Realms independently of their D&D campaign (and that for this reason couldn't pick and use only the parts of lore they liked).
EDIT: Also, I don't understand what 4e did that previous editions didn't to make you understand what you said (AFAIK, the 4e FR player book even contains something along the lines of ''wind up your old camapaign, time to play the good stuff'' which is quite the contrary of what you pointed out. EDIT: I was wrong, it doesn't)
quote:
Mozart is a God?
Well, he kinda is when it comes to music  |
Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things. |
Edited by - Irennan on 02 Jul 2013 20:16:00 |
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sfdragon
Great Reader
2285 Posts |
Posted - 02 Jul 2013 : 18:57:23
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quote:
Originally posted by Aulduron
Mozart is a God?
he's one of the patron saints of the arts that serve Oghma |
why is being a wizard like being a drow? both are likely to find a dagger in the back from a rival or one looking to further his own goals, fame and power
My FR fan fiction
Magister's GAmbit
http://steelfiredragon.deviantart.com/gallery/33539234 |
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Aldrick
Senior Scribe
909 Posts |
Posted - 02 Jul 2013 : 19:00:34
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4E truly liberated me from the canon Realms, and as a result gave me much more freedom. Prior to 4th Edition I was afraid to make massive and sweeping changes to the setting as I was worried that people wouldn't consider it the Forgotten Realms anymore. I was also afraid that if I made massive changes, that a new source book would eventually come out - I'd want it - only to find that most of it is useless for my home Realms.
My OCD level of perfectionism also drove me nuts with all the fiddly bits of FR lore. I was very much obsessed with trying to make the Realms feel "authentic" (whatever that means ).
I did this in spite of the fact that I found things I disliked about the setting, but refused to change out of a misguided notion of "sticking with the canon".
When 4E came with its changes, well... it was like a slap in the face. I liked a small handful of the changes made, but the time jump effectively killed the canon more than anything else. I couldn't follow where the Realms went, and that forced me to strike out on my own.
In the end, I got the setting I wanted. There may be some people who'd claim I "ruined" the Realms, because many of my changes were even more drastic than 4th Edition. It's certainly much more darker in tone and feel - with a lot more moral ambiguity, and drastically reduced levels of magic from a D&D perspective (no longer using D&D rules). ...but I'm happy with what I've done, and that's what matters to me.
So, yeah. I guess 4th Edition taught me that I should have done this a long time ago - back in 3E when they were blowing everything up with one RSE after another.
Now, all I need are players and time to actually run a campaign.  |
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xaeyruudh
Master of Realmslore
USA
1853 Posts |
Posted - 02 Jul 2013 : 19:07:17
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quote:
Originally posted by Irennan
the problem with canon has never been game focused, but setting focused and concerned many of the people who enjoyed the Realms independently of their D&D campaign (and that for this reason couldn't pick and use only the parts of lore they liked).
You also can't pick and choose lore if you have any hope of ever having a story published in that setting. For authors, canon is the setting, and the only way you can get away with re-interpreting anything is if (1) you can explain it to readers in a way that will make sense to them (taking into account both readers who are new to the Realms and/or D&D and young readers who don't yet have an advanced understanding of the language or worldbuilding) and (2) WotC approves of both your interpretation and your explanation, and doesn't already have conflicting plans in either of those areas.
4e taught me that I don't want to write for WotC, and delivered the lesson much more forcefully than any previous edition.
I'm looking forward to 5e providing reasons to reconsider. |
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xaeyruudh
Master of Realmslore
USA
1853 Posts |
Posted - 02 Jul 2013 : 19:09:42
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And well said, Aldrick! This is true for me too, as far as my own campaigns go.
quote:
Originally posted by Aldrick
4E truly liberated me from the canon Realms, and as a result gave me much more freedom. Prior to 4th Edition I was afraid to make massive and sweeping changes to the setting as I was worried that people wouldn't consider it the Forgotten Realms anymore.
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Irennan
Great Reader
Italy
3821 Posts |
Posted - 02 Jul 2013 : 19:38:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Aldrick
4E truly liberated me from the canon Realms, and as a result gave me much more freedom. Prior to 4th Edition I was afraid to make massive and sweeping changes to the setting as I was worried that people wouldn't consider it the Forgotten Realms anymore. I was also afraid that if I made massive changes, that a new source book would eventually come out - I'd want it - only to find that most of it is useless for my home Realms.
My OCD level of perfectionism also drove me nuts with all the fiddly bits of FR lore. I was very much obsessed with trying to make the Realms feel "authentic" (whatever that means ).
I did this in spite of the fact that I found things I disliked about the setting, but refused to change out of a misguided notion of "sticking with the canon".
When 4E came with its changes, well... it was like a slap in the face. I liked a small handful of the changes made, but the time jump effectively killed the canon more than anything else. I couldn't follow where the Realms went, and that forced me to strike out on my own.
In the end, I got the setting I wanted. There may be some people who'd claim I "ruined" the Realms, because many of my changes were even more drastic than 4th Edition. It's certainly much more darker in tone and feel - with a lot more moral ambiguity, and drastically reduced levels of magic from a D&D perspective (no longer using D&D rules). ...but I'm happy with what I've done, and that's what matters to me.
So, yeah. I guess 4th Edition taught me that I should have done this a long time ago - back in 3E when they were blowing everything up with one RSE after another.
Now, all I need are players and time to actually run a campaign.
Meh. Honestly I don't consider ''slapping'' people who chose to bend their campaing to whatever Wizbros decided for the setting so that they could start to use lore as they please something worth all the pointless (and at times nonsensical) drama and destruction that stormed the Realms. Besides, would you smash something in order to teach people how to use it? I doubt it.
You chose to do things according to canon, but I cannot possibly believe that you were actually convinced that by buying Realms books, you were basically paying to have less options. The function of lore when it comes to gaming is to provide ideas, not limit them: it's what defines good lore and -to be blunt- it is quite obvious.
Also 4e didn't ''liberate you from canon'', It simply changed it to something you didn't like. That edition didn't do anything to directly encourage people to use the lore as they wish (as I said, IIRC there was this line in the 4e FR player book that told people ''old lore and your campaing based on it are gone, new one is the good stuff'' EDIT: I was wrong, it doesn't say that).
@ xaeyruudh:
quote:
You also can't pick and choose lore if you have any hope of ever having a story published in that setting. For authors, canon is the setting, and the only way you can get away with re-interpreting anything is if (1) you can explain it to readers in a way that will make sense to them (taking into account both readers who are new to the Realms and/or D&D and young readers who don't yet have an advanced understanding of the language or worldbuilding) and (2) WotC approves of both your interpretation and your explanation, and doesn't already have conflicting plans in either of those areas.
4e taught me that I don't want to write for WotC, and delivered the lesson much more forcefully than any previous edition.
I'm looking forward to 5e providing reasons to reconsider.
Ofc, and this influences writers and -by consequence of it- the people who enjoy the Realms as a ''world'' (not only a setting) and that like the characters and places that were drastically changed or removed. This is exactly what I was talking about. |
Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things. |
Edited by - Irennan on 02 Jul 2013 20:16:24 |
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Jeremy Grenemyer
Great Reader
USA
2717 Posts |
Posted - 02 Jul 2013 : 21:06:03
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quote:
Originally posted by Irennan
You chose to do things according to canon, but I cannot possibly believe ...
Dude, could you please lay off?
Nobody needs you to qualify their feelings for them or tell them that they don't feel how say they feel.
Please let those who want to enjoy the thread do so without threat of harassment. |
Look for me and my content at EN World (user name: sanishiver). |
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Mirtek
Senior Scribe
595 Posts |
Posted - 02 Jul 2013 : 21:13:41
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quote:
Originally posted by xaeyruudh
I'm looking forward to 5e providing reasons to reconsider.
I really hope it won't. The things you describe as "bad" are the only way to keep a shared setting used by a host of different authors consistent.
If an author is "pulling to much at the leash" he might not be suited to work in a shared setting where everyone has to keep the greater picture in mind and follow some common rules.
Letting each and every author just pull a shared setting into whatever direction he wants is a sure way to ruin a shared setting very quickly |
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Irennan
Great Reader
Italy
3821 Posts |
Posted - 02 Jul 2013 : 21:41:30
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quote:
Originally posted by Jeremy Grenemyer
quote:
Originally posted by Irennan
You chose to do things according to canon, but I cannot possibly believe ...
Dude, could you please lay off?
Nobody needs you to qualify their feelings for them or tell them that they don't feel how say they feel.
Please let those who want to enjoy the thread do so without threat of harassment.
I wasn't harassing anyone, please let me enjoy the thread without the threat of blame. I think that my words didn't contain insults and that I didn't try to qualify Aldrick's feelings.
I don't see why what I said would look like that. I stated that he felt like he said -i.e. chose to stick to canon because he wanted his Realms to be ''authentic''-, but that no one would waste money on lore if (s)he saw it as actually restraining, in the sense that it forces realmsian campaigns to bend to it (which is the perception problem whose solution 4e is being given credit for. I find it really hard to believe that it existed in that way: sure some people wanted to stick to canon even if they didn't like some parts of it to reflect the ''bigger'' Realms, but they knew that they could do things in a different way if wished so).
Anyway, if anyone took offence from what I wrote, (s)he has my apologies. |
Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things. |
Edited by - Irennan on 02 Jul 2013 22:14:32 |
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Renin
Learned Scribe
USA
290 Posts |
Posted - 02 Jul 2013 : 22:02:05
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quote:
Originally posted by Diffan
4E taught me not to be a slave to Canon and use it however I see fit.
Sheeeeet...I've been doing that since 2nd Edition.
My group and I have NEVER met Elminster, any of the 7 sisters, Manshoon, Semmemon, Fzoul, Drizzt, Knights of Myth Drannor, or Szass Tam.
And the Realms felt like the Realms still; big and daring, grand old histories and ruins to explore, treasures to be found, death and peril to encounter, and many an inn to drink, share tales in, and...start bar fights at.
We are not locked into anything. There's so much material from 2nd and 3rd that I don't believe you possibly could have explored all prior 4th edition canon. Couple that with making your own campaigns, why worry about the product line? It'll either sort itself out...or be destroyed (which I believe is all our worry).
So yeah, I'm down with Diffan. Enjoy playing with what you like, and ditch the rest.
But I can tell you that the Spellplague will never have happened in my Realms. Heck, we haven't even caught up to the Shades returning-and we hate that stuff too. Bad guys just to be bad guys? Lame I say. Probably won't even bring that in either. |
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Renin
Learned Scribe
USA
290 Posts |
Posted - 02 Jul 2013 : 22:05:33
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quote:
Originally posted by Aldrick
In the end, I got the setting I wanted. There may be some people who'd claim I "ruined" the Realms, because many of my changes were even more drastic than 4th Edition. It's certainly much more darker in tone and feel - with a lot more moral ambiguity, and drastically reduced levels of magic from a D&D perspective (no longer using D&D rules). ...but I'm happy with what I've done, and that's what matters to me.
Hear, hear!  |
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Aldrick
Senior Scribe
909 Posts |
Posted - 02 Jul 2013 : 23:54:16
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quote:
Originally posted by Irennan
Meh. Honestly I don't consider ''slapping'' people who chose to bend their campaing....
Stopping you right there for a moment. No one said that WotC was forcing me to do anything, nor did I say that it wasn't my choice. My choices were only partially influenced by WotC, and to the extent that they were it was because of the source books - I wanted to make sure that I wasn't missing any lore. If I radically changed Cormyr (which I've done in my Realms), it pretty much means that any future Cormyr source book is useless to me outside of a 'love of the lore' pursuit. It also makes it harder for older source books to be mined for information.
For example, in my Realms a lot of important things happened around the time Azoun V ascended to the throne. Cormyr ends up conquering Sembia, and the nation begins to morph into a theocratic monarchy - in which a lot of the power rests in the hands of the priests of Amaunator. There has been huge changes throughout the entire region. The Shades are gone. The primary enemy for both the Dalelands and Cormyr are the Elves of Cormanthor who very much have an almost Eldreth Veluuthra like stance when it comes to the humans of the region. ...and to some extent, that bigoted stance toward humans is justified.
I completely changed how the Spellplague happened - the Weave ended up being corrupted by Moander with the aid of Shar. Those that use Weave magic slowly over time become corrupted - rotting from the inside out and going insane. Mystra herself lives on as well, but as a twisted, bloated and rotting monstrosity that has been driven utterly insane.
So, yeah... with changes like that it can be hard to make it work with source books. However, what ultimately most heavily influenced the way that I did things was not WotC, but the FR community itself. When I was first coming to the Realms to begin using the setting many years ago - over a decade ago now, probably - the lore was a bit overwhelming. I came to one of the forums (not Candlekeep) and started a discussion over whether or not the Realms needed as many deities as it had. I happened to include a rather long list of deities that I was considering flushing down the toilet. My line of thinking, and intention behind posting, was basically, "Are any of these deities actually important? Some of these racial deities here look redundant, will it break anything if I just get rid of them?"
...and the response was basically having people absolutely flip their crap. I was basically told, in less than kind words, that if I wanted to make such drastic changes to the setting that I should create my own homebrew world. I was flatly told that "no one would consider THAT to be the Realms!"
Back then people really seemed to be pushing the notion that if you wanted to play in the Realms it had to be the canon Realms. If you made significant changes to the setting then no one would want to play in your "bastardized" version of the Realms.
It wasn't just that one conversation, of course, it was how other people were playing in the Realms as well. I frequently read posts about how people were running their players through a certain story that took place in the novels (replacing novel characters with the PCs), and it was starting to run off the rails. They were worried about their players not engaging in certain important critical plot points, and thus altering the outcome of the final events. So, basically, they were looking for assistance in how to rail road their players to keep them in the canon.
Things are different today, though I'm certain some people would read about the changes I've made to my home version of the Realms and say the same things that were said over a decade ago.
Back then, I assumed that if you wanted to play in the Realms, and wanted other people who were interested in the setting - you couldn't make drastic changes. I would have argued that it would invalidate the purpose of an off the shelf campaign setting, and a shared world. After all, one of the major benefits is that most everyone who plays the game is going to already be familiar with the setting. This was sort of a basic built in assumption.
Of course, that assumption is wrong. Lots of people did avoid the Realms because of the heavy amount of lore. I personally fell in love with it, and threw myself into it. At a certain point - when you have tons of source books - you become financially invested in ensuring that things stick close to canon. After all, you've spent a lot of money on those books, and the last thing you want to do is turn them into paper weights.
So, my opinions and choices were shaped by things like the above.
Today, my Realms is largely canon in the sense that all of events leading up to and immediately after the Time of Troubles is completely canon. After that point, I fiddle around a bit with certain things, even if I'm not 100% in favor of it. For example, I have Returned Netheril appearing, but I get rid of them immediately after the Spellplague.
My version of the Spellplague is when my Realms diverges and separates completely from canon. This allows me to ensure that all my source books are still valid as historical lore texts for my Realms. I can still use them for inspiration and ideas.
quote:
Originally posted by Irennan
...worth all the pointless (and at times nonsensical) drama and destruction that stormed the Realms. Besides, would you smash something in order to teach people how to use it? I doubt it.
I never said it was worth it, nor that the intention was to teach me anything. It's more of finding a silver lining amid the destruction. Sometimes you end up learning valuable lessons when things go horribly wrong. In fact, that's likely when you learn the most valuable lessons.
Also, keep in mind that I was screaming at the top of my lungs during 3rd Edition. It drove me nuts how many RSE's they were having, and I absolutely hated it. The fact that they threw a RSE to end all RSE's at us was... well, it was par for the course in my opinion, and it was the point where the Realms jumped the shark completely.
I became very much anti-Realms novels (even to the point of openly boycotting them!) because of all the RSE's that they introduced. By the end of 3E, I was pretty much already standing in the doorway with one foot on the other side, ready to abandon the setting entirely due to the large number of RSE's.
quote:
Originally posted by Irennan
I cannot possibly believe that you were actually convinced that by buying Realms books, you were basically paying to have less options. The function of lore when it comes to gaming is to provide ideas, not limit them: it's what defines good lore and -to be blunt- it is quite obvious.
Buying Realms source books had nothing to do with options. At least not for me. It had to do with gaining information - lore. I wanted to know more about certain regions of the setting, about its people, it's culture, it's geography, and all that good stuff.
That is a very different thing than looking for "options". Even if I had access to an older source book, I still wanted a newer one because of the advancing timeline. I wanted to know what changed.
When you're looking for information instead of "options" (as you put it), your mindset is completely different. If you want to run games that try to authentically capture the Realms as they are within the canon, those source books are pretty important. And if I wanted those books to be useful, I couldn't do things like what I did to Cormyr. How useful is a 4E source book on Cormyr going to be for me? Not very useful. At best, I could mine it for some good ideas. However, the same is true for other campaign settings.
You may have interacted with it differently, and that's fine. It's irrelevant at this point. However, that's not how I handled or interacted with the setting.
quote:
Originally posted by Irennan
Also 4e didn't ''liberate you from canon'', It simply changed it to something you didn't like.
4E didn't change to something I disliked, I was pretty much already disliking what they had done during 3E as well, and was a strong and vocal critic.
Once again, it goes back to my issue with RSE's.
I also argued about the inaccurate perception the novels were creating about the Realms by featuring powerful characters such as Elminster, which was leading people to believe that there was no room for their PC's in the setting. This was an inaccurate perception directly created by the novels, and it was not reflecting the authenticity of the setting. It was giving people a very skewed view of the Realms - they were creating the perception that you needed to be very powerful individuals to make a difference, and the world was constantly in danger as one RSE after another shook it. We even had people say stuff like this when people brought up this imaginary problem: "It's easy to ignore, because Elminster has more important things to do! He has to tackle the big stuff while the PC's handle X!" Which only went to further the perception that such characters were basically the "true heroes" of the setting, and "spotlight thieves".
All of this was completely false, but it was directly created by the novels and then reinforced by people saying stupid stuff like the above. How many arguments over the years have we've seen over things like this? Hundreds and hundreds, no doubt.
Then there was the whole issue of turning the Gods into characters and overly humanizing them.
There were just so many things that pissed me off pre-4E that I feel my blood pressure rising and a rant coming on just thinking about it.
For me, 4th Edition was just the final nail in the coffin. It wasn't the singular event that caused me to break from canon, it was just the last straw.
quote:
Originally posted by Irennan
That edition didn't do anything to directly encourage people to use the lore as they wish...
Actually, 4th Edition did kinda do that.
quote:
NOT "FR"? NO PROBLEM!
You can take advantage of the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide (and its companion volume, the Player’s Guide) even if your campaign is not set in the world of Toril.
All of the concepts and details in this book can work just as well in a setting that you have devised yourself. In other words, you can pick and choose, using the parts of this material that you find most interesting or most compatible with your current setting. By doing so, you can inject the wonder and intrigue of Faerun into your game while keeping all the elements of your existing world that you and your players have become accustomed to.
For example, the realm known as the Underdark had its beginnings in earlier Forgotten Realms products. Since then, that term and all it encompasses have been adopted into the core D&D rules. Although you can certainly create your own Underdark if you want to, there's a fully developed version of the World Below waiting for you inside these pages.
Remember, your setting is always unique to you. It is what you and your players make it. That's true whether you use every bit of a book like this one, or whether you use it as seasoning to spice up the world you've already made.
- pg. 4, of the 4th Edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide
That was probably the most useful part of the entire book, and it's something that should appear in the introduction of every FR book hereafter. |
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Irennan
Great Reader
Italy
3821 Posts |
Posted - 03 Jul 2013 : 01:30:44
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quote:
Originally posted by Aldrick
Stopping you right there for a moment. No one said that WotC was forcing me to do anything, nor did I say that it wasn't my choice. My choices were only partially influenced by WotC, and to the extent that they were it was because of the source books - I wanted to make sure that I wasn't missing any lore. If I radically changed Cormyr (which I've done in my Realms), it pretty much means that any future Cormyr source book is useless to me outside of a 'love of the lore' pursuit. It also makes it harder for older source books to be mined for information.
[...]
Today, my Realms is largely canon in the sense that all of events leading up to and immediately after the Time of Troubles is completely canon. After that point, I fiddle around a bit with certain things, even if I'm not 100% in favor of it. For example, I have Returned Netheril appearing, but I get rid of them immediately after the Spellplague.
My version of the Spellplague is when my Realms diverges and separates completely from canon. This allows me to ensure that all my source books are still valid as historical lore texts for my Realms. I can still use them for inspiration and ideas.
[...]
Also, keep in mind that I was screaming at the top of my lungs during 3rd Edition. It drove me nuts how many RSE's they were having, and I absolutely hated it. The fact that they threw a RSE to end all RSE's at us was... well, it was par for the course in my opinion, and it was the point where the Realms jumped the shark completely.
I became very much anti-Realms novels (even to the point of openly boycotting them!) because of all the RSE's that they introduced. By the end of 3E, I was pretty much already standing in the doorway with one foot on the other side, ready to abandon the setting entirely due to the large number of RSE's.
4E didn't change to something I disliked, I was pretty much already disliking what they had done during 3E as well, and was a strong and vocal critic.
[...]
For me, 4th Edition was just the final nail in the coffin. It wasn't the singular event that caused me to break from canon, it was just the last straw.
I see. Then, in a sense, you were already using the lore as you saw fit, but keeping it ''close'' to the official version so that the material about it could still be useful. This is about what I wanted to point out, i.e. people wanted to stick to canonical realms, but they knew that they could choose otherwise. RSEs of sort (and I totally agree with what you said about this matter), 4e or whatever change that they absolutely and completely disliked made them ignore official lore and run whatever they wanted. It's not like the changes suddenly made people understand that when it comes to a campaing, the point of having lore is not only details, but choice.
About what you pointed out concerning the FR community, I wasn't aware that a similar behaviour was as radicated as you said (I picked up the Realms during late 3e, and joined this forum the last year), but I really think that it was related more to wanting to impose their opinion about the matter, than to being shackled to canon.
quote:
Buying Realms source books had nothing to do with options. At least not for me. It had to do with gaining information - lore. I wanted to know more about certain regions of the setting, about its people, it's culture, it's geography, and all that good stuff.
That is a very different thing than looking for "options". Even if I had access to an older source book, I still wanted a newer one because of the advancing timeline. I wanted to know what changed.
When you're looking for information instead of "options" (as you put it), your mindset is completely different. If you want to run games that try to authentically capture the Realms as they are within the canon, those source books are pretty important. And if I wanted those books to be useful, I couldn't do things like what I did to Cormyr. How useful is a 4E source book on Cormyr going to be for me? Not very useful. At best, I could mine it for some good ideas. However, the same is true for other campaign settings.
You may have interacted with it differently, and that's fine. It's irrelevant at this point. However, that's not how I handled or interacted with the setting.
My point was this:
Sourcebooks have the purpose of providing ideas and details (these are the options I was talking about) when it comes to the game. No one would spend their money on it, if they saw such things as actually restraining (unless it's purely for the info). The people who sticked to canon and wanted to run an ''authentic'' campaing knew that they could choose to use whatever parts they wanted, drastic changes they disliked simply forced them to do so (as they couldn't use the sourcebooks for that purpose anymore).
It is about the same thing I said above, I was using the act of buying sourcebooks as an example (sorry if I wasn't clear about it).
The only people actually shackled to canon are the one who buy the sourcebooks only for the lore: they have no choice but to stop buying, if they don't like what they read. However this has little to do with the use of canonical lore in D&D (or whatever system) games.
quote:
Actually, 4th Edition did kinda do that.
quote:
NOT "FR"? NO PROBLEM!
You can take advantage of the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide (and its companion volume, the Player’s Guide) even if your campaign is not set in the world of Toril.
All of the concepts and details in this book can work just as well in a setting that you have devised yourself. In other words, you can pick and choose, using the parts of this material that you find most interesting or most compatible with your current setting. By doing so, you can inject the wonder and intrigue of Faerun into your game while keeping all the elements of your existing world that you and your players have become accustomed to.
For example, the realm known as the Underdark had its beginnings in earlier Forgotten Realms products. Since then, that term and all it encompasses have been adopted into the core D&D rules. Although you can certainly create your own Underdark if you want to, there's a fully developed version of the World Below waiting for you inside these pages.
Remember, your setting is always unique to you. It is what you and your players make it. That's true whether you use every bit of a book like this one, or whether you use it as seasoning to spice up the world you've already made.
- pg. 4, of the 4th Edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide
That was probably the most useful part of the entire book, and it's something that should appear in the introduction of every FR book hereafter.
The 3e campaign book also contains something similar.
quote:
[...] It's a setting for your adventures, a background for your characters and plots, a set of suggestions for how
you could play a continuing game, and a source of ideas for how to
develop a world of your own. [...]
It's less explicit, but is there.
That said, I still don't see what 4e did to encourage compete customization of the setting that other editions didn't (besides, a single line doesn't do much in that regard). |
Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things. |
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silverwolfer
Senior Scribe
789 Posts |
Posted - 03 Jul 2013 : 01:35:20
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| Really wish we had spoiler tags, pain to read all this on a phone :( |
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Diffan
Great Reader
USA
4487 Posts |
Posted - 03 Jul 2013 : 05:55:29
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quote:
Originally posted by Irennan
That said, I still don't see what 4e did to encourage compete customization of the setting that other editions didn't (besides, a single line doesn't do much in that regard).
To me it was two parts:
1). 100 year jump into the future changes the course of the setting and made it feel new. I didn't feel obligated to adhere to specific elements within the scope of the setting because of such-and-such novel or a specific supplement (this obligation was totally voluntary, not pressed). Further I didn't have to justify any of the customization I made because there was little supporting evidence to the contrary. With previous supplements and the microscopic lense it placed into the setting, well......it can be discouraging to the imagination when that imagination wants to create something new AND remain close to (if not 99%) within Canon.
2). Lore-lite approach to the setting at the beginning. While I find now that I'd like MORE lore (well, informational stuff about Abeir/Akanûl/Tymanther) going into the setting without first needing a large pool of info to read through really helped fuel imagination. The fact that the map isn't ridiculously detailed allowed me to add in a town or city or change the name of a river AND follow that up with the "offical" map. Sure, I could've done this with other eras but I didn't because i felt obligated to follow Canon as strictly as possible so I didn't bother adding in my own elements because they felt out of place.
In previous editions, it always felt (to me) that the Realms were a HUGE puzzle that most of the pices were already set. The cities, the NPCs, the nations, rivers, landmarks, hills, mountians, etc. were all detailed in some form or another (and that's good, to a point) but it also made me feel that messing with that puzzle would result in something bad or unrecognizable and thus, ruin my experience. Because 4E made the lore and map much lighter in scope and detail, it also removed this willingness to work within a narrow frame and to branch out a bit to make it a bit more "my own".
Its hard to explain because its far more a "feeling" element that one might get from their experience. For contrast, I heard people complain that 4E classes felt far too similiar in scope and style and that they played the same. I cannot understand this feeling for the life of me. A wizard plays completely different in feel, application, scope, and roleplay than a Fighter or Monk that this feeling is completely alien to me, yet there the feeling is. |
Diffan's NPG Generator: FR NPC Generator
E6 Options: Epic 6 Campaign |
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sfdragon
Great Reader
2285 Posts |
Posted - 03 Jul 2013 : 08:08:53
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| that might be the only way they could describe it, after all Diffan, each class did get x amount of powers per day....... |
why is being a wizard like being a drow? both are likely to find a dagger in the back from a rival or one looking to further his own goals, fame and power
My FR fan fiction
Magister's GAmbit
http://steelfiredragon.deviantart.com/gallery/33539234 |
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Irennan
Great Reader
Italy
3821 Posts |
Posted - 03 Jul 2013 : 09:46:32
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quote:
Originally posted by Diffan
To me it was two parts:
1). 100 year jump into the future changes the course of the setting and made it feel new. I didn't feel obligated to adhere to specific elements within the scope of the setting because of such-and-such novel or a specific supplement (this obligation was totally voluntary, not pressed). Further I didn't have to justify any of the customization I made because there was little supporting evidence to the contrary. With previous supplements and the microscopic lense it placed into the setting, well......it can be discouraging to the imagination when that imagination wants to create something new AND remain close to (if not 99%) within Canon.
2). Lore-lite approach to the setting at the beginning. While I find now that I'd like MORE lore (well, informational stuff about Abeir/Akanûl/Tymanther) going into the setting without first needing a large pool of info to read through really helped fuel imagination. The fact that the map isn't ridiculously detailed allowed me to add in a town or city or change the name of a river AND follow that up with the "offical" map. Sure, I could've done this with other eras but I didn't because i felt obligated to follow Canon as strictly as possible so I didn't bother adding in my own elements because they felt out of place.
I understand, having less lore gave people the impression to be free from its restraints (while they were getting less options from the books). Then it was mostly a matter of feeling that way, rather than 4e approach actually having a ''structure'' promoting customization (like 5e modularity, which can achieve what you said w/o the need of destroying stuff). |
Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things. |
Edited by - Irennan on 03 Jul 2013 10:33:54 |
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Tarlyn
Learned Scribe
USA
315 Posts |
Posted - 03 Jul 2013 : 12:15:07
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I will agree that 4e "taught" me that following cannon was a waste of time. However, the reason for that is the quality of realms products noised drived with 4e and the "cannon" was a big one fingered salute to fans of the setting. I also don't purchase 4e FR products, because they have nothing to add to my game. I would much rather have a setting with an interesting cannon that was populated by great characters rather than a post apocalyptic waste land that has no advantage over the vastly superior Dark Sun setting.
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Tarlyn Embersun |
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Things that 4e taught me about faerun
