I'm inclined to agree with primal. I tend to want canon, but I dont expect perfection. If the whole campaign is based on something that is a big contradiction though, I'll get a bit irked. BUT! I wont harass the DM mid game. and after game, I let him know of the contradiction, and give him some canonical book that shows the area/problem/whatever, and let them decide what to do with it. They know the contradiction is there, they can deal with it how they want. And I didnt ruin a game session.
But I've never really met many Realms Canon Lawyers that were a pain in the ass. Occasionally they use a bit of
FR knowledge I hadnt thought of like "OH, we can totally get the Zhents in on this to stop those pesky Harpers that have been following us, and manipulate them into fighting eachother!" I proceed to make them do their Knowledge roll and then see if they can think of it "In Game". If I make a colossal oops and they point it out to me, I take the constructive criticism, and then adjust accordingly. it requires thinking on your feet, and some knowledge of the material. Oh well.
As for Mary Sues, Keep in mind who the major ones are, and then if you come up with a situation they could step in, and you dont want them to, have a reason for it.
"Elminster will save us!"
"Sorry Kiddies, Elminster is stopping another world threatening problem and is unavailable"
"Drizzt Will Save us!"
"Good luck finding him"
Problem Mary Sue: Solved. I find Mary Sues to be annoying myself. Now, I'll include NPCs that are published of all levels - in fact, before going into a new location, I see if there are published stats of NPCs in that location, and look up the location. A quick google search will tell me where to look for them, or have links to unofficial stat blocks, etc. But even when I do, they are not Deus Ex Machina for the players.
I actually actively dislike many of the upper level NPCs that are popular. Elminster is okay but too Deus Ex Machina to involve in any capacity other than to offer the PCs advice before rnning off to deal with a bigger problem, Drizzt annoys me, and is always either nowhere to be found, or makes a cameo as an NPC about to die unless the heroes are fortunate enough to save them without killing themselves - but they usually say "DROW KILL IT!" and dont realize it was Drizzt until they and a whole bunch of others have slaughtered a Drizzt - I've had him die of in 3 games. I had Halaster following the PCs once. He had an obsession with a female PC. He was trying to decide whether he wanted to experiment on her or have sex with her. The players were well creeped out. It was the best Mary Suing ever! He saved her life a couple times - but ignored the rest of the party, and they werent too happy when they had to go to undermountain to get her back. lol
And yeah. From the people I've seen, and activity at Candlekeep, and Number of posts here, Forgotten Realms is all but gone and forgotten with the advent of
4e. I know a guy who runs living forgotten realms. But I know alot more people who wont go anywhere near it for fear of being corrupted by the mockery of the setting they used to love. Effectively, the people I know who havent given up on
FR have given up on anything published past the end of 3.5e. (other than like 1 or 2). That's what I've done. There's enough published material in the pre-
4e stuff that you can find the information you want on any topic in the realms.
I would love a
FR encyclopedia program though. I have the Maps program, its amazingly useful (though outdated). A program filled with the fluff from the books, organized by topic in a wikipedia-like manner would make things easier, and would be more useful than yet more sourcebooks. Being able to look up NPCs and get a brief history with the years noted and a writeup would be amazing too. I'd want it to include more than the stuff in one edition though. So, while new would supercede old, anything not changed in 3.5e would be listed from 2e.
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