The ramblings of a Boston area gamer
Why I'm willing to give 4E Forgotten Realms a Chance
Posted 11th August 2008 at 11:50 PM by Elodan
Warning: There may be spoilers to some of the more recent FR plots herein.
I plan on buying both the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide and the Player's Guide when they are released (with the judicious use of coupons at B&N).
My experience with the Forgotten Realms started with reading the novels during the 2E days. During 3E, I started to run a campaign which I based in the Realms. This is was when I started collecting the RPG materials. I have picked up and read every 3E sourcebook (exceptions: Lords of Darkness, Dragons of Faerun, Power of Faerun and The Grand History of Faerun; own, still need to read).
I was attracted to the lore of the world (I'm a big campaign setting fan). In addition, I liked the medieval feel of the world and the 'kitchen sink' approach to the world. If I wanted a campaign based around the plots of the nobility and the monarchy I could use Cormyr. If I wanted an Arabian Nights thing I had Calimshan. I enjoyed running my campaign there but I was about to abandon FR for another setting before the 4E announcement.
One of the biggest reasons I liked the Realms is the meta-plot. The world kept moving no matter what my PCs did. While the PCs could stop a Zhent plot in Secomber, the demon-fey could escape Hellgate Keep and cause havoc for Evereska. It made the world feel alive. This blessing was also a curse. The sheer number of recent Realms Shaking Events (RSEs) was getting to be too much. By the time you caught up on one, two more had taking place. By the time I had read about the return of Shade and figured out how to adapt it to my world, the dragon rage happens.
I have the option of ignoring those events but the problem is that later source books build upon these events. Eventually, these books become relatively useless to me. What's the point of using a living world if I'm diverging so far from existing canon I might as well use something like Eberron with a static time-line but has novels I can steal ideas or moving the world forward using the events they describe.
That said, I was pretty angry about the changes that were coming to the Realms with 4E. I told my players I was going to switch campaign worlds. I started a search for a new world to use. Eventually, I decided to come back to the Realms and give the 4E changes a chance. Here are some of my reasons:
Richard Baker
This guy took (and still takes) a hell of a beating on the WotC forums, but I think he did a very good job explaining the reasoning behind the changes. Most of his posts had me thinking, "Oh I never thought of it that way, that makes some sense" or "that would make an interesting adventure."
New Lore
The setting went through some pretty big changes. While some of the changes seem heavy-handed or hackneyed, there are stories behind them. This gives me the opportunity to learn these stories. I can even change the ones I don’t like without having to worry about a later sourcebook overwriting them.
More Focused Pantheon
I for one was not overwhelmed by the number of deities in FR but it was causing some confusion for my players. It was really difficult to explain the need for different deities whose profiles will so similar. While I'm not happy that the racial pantheons are going, I do like the idea of a smaller more focused pantheon. I like the idea of those deities that are not becoming part of the smaller pantheon are either aspects of the gods or will become a patron saint/demigod (unless they were killed).
Brian R James's Cormyr Article
This is what pushed me off the fence and into the "will buy" territory. While a fair number of the FR excerpts have been fairly bland, this article was extremely well done and demonstrated that while things were changing, not every change was going to destroy the Realms as I knew them. Brian proved that there are people writing for WotC who can take good care of the Realms.
Number of Sourcebooks
Finally, I do like that there will (supposedly) only be 2 RPG books released for the setting. It gives me a living world that I can move forward with the novels as I choose without those novels forcing their lore upon my world (i.e. later source books).
While I'm not thrilled with all the changes, I will be picking up these books and giving them a chance in my 4E campaign (worst comes to worst, I go back to 1372 DR).
I plan on buying both the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide and the Player's Guide when they are released (with the judicious use of coupons at B&N).
My experience with the Forgotten Realms started with reading the novels during the 2E days. During 3E, I started to run a campaign which I based in the Realms. This is was when I started collecting the RPG materials. I have picked up and read every 3E sourcebook (exceptions: Lords of Darkness, Dragons of Faerun, Power of Faerun and The Grand History of Faerun; own, still need to read).
I was attracted to the lore of the world (I'm a big campaign setting fan). In addition, I liked the medieval feel of the world and the 'kitchen sink' approach to the world. If I wanted a campaign based around the plots of the nobility and the monarchy I could use Cormyr. If I wanted an Arabian Nights thing I had Calimshan. I enjoyed running my campaign there but I was about to abandon FR for another setting before the 4E announcement.
One of the biggest reasons I liked the Realms is the meta-plot. The world kept moving no matter what my PCs did. While the PCs could stop a Zhent plot in Secomber, the demon-fey could escape Hellgate Keep and cause havoc for Evereska. It made the world feel alive. This blessing was also a curse. The sheer number of recent Realms Shaking Events (RSEs) was getting to be too much. By the time you caught up on one, two more had taking place. By the time I had read about the return of Shade and figured out how to adapt it to my world, the dragon rage happens.
I have the option of ignoring those events but the problem is that later source books build upon these events. Eventually, these books become relatively useless to me. What's the point of using a living world if I'm diverging so far from existing canon I might as well use something like Eberron with a static time-line but has novels I can steal ideas or moving the world forward using the events they describe.
That said, I was pretty angry about the changes that were coming to the Realms with 4E. I told my players I was going to switch campaign worlds. I started a search for a new world to use. Eventually, I decided to come back to the Realms and give the 4E changes a chance. Here are some of my reasons:
Richard Baker
This guy took (and still takes) a hell of a beating on the WotC forums, but I think he did a very good job explaining the reasoning behind the changes. Most of his posts had me thinking, "Oh I never thought of it that way, that makes some sense" or "that would make an interesting adventure."
New Lore
The setting went through some pretty big changes. While some of the changes seem heavy-handed or hackneyed, there are stories behind them. This gives me the opportunity to learn these stories. I can even change the ones I don’t like without having to worry about a later sourcebook overwriting them.
More Focused Pantheon
I for one was not overwhelmed by the number of deities in FR but it was causing some confusion for my players. It was really difficult to explain the need for different deities whose profiles will so similar. While I'm not happy that the racial pantheons are going, I do like the idea of a smaller more focused pantheon. I like the idea of those deities that are not becoming part of the smaller pantheon are either aspects of the gods or will become a patron saint/demigod (unless they were killed).
Brian R James's Cormyr Article
This is what pushed me off the fence and into the "will buy" territory. While a fair number of the FR excerpts have been fairly bland, this article was extremely well done and demonstrated that while things were changing, not every change was going to destroy the Realms as I knew them. Brian proved that there are people writing for WotC who can take good care of the Realms.
Number of Sourcebooks
Finally, I do like that there will (supposedly) only be 2 RPG books released for the setting. It gives me a living world that I can move forward with the novels as I choose without those novels forcing their lore upon my world (i.e. later source books).
While I'm not thrilled with all the changes, I will be picking up these books and giving them a chance in my 4E campaign (worst comes to worst, I go back to 1372 DR).
Total Comments 0
Comments
Total Trackbacks 0
And yet another word from our sponsors
