D&D 3E/3.5 5e Forgotten Realms - should it be closer to 3e or 4e?

[Grazzt]

I loved the realms in 1E and 2E.

3E was still solid, though, so any of the times 1E - 3E would work.

The 4E timeline was fanfic.

Actually- they could have Elminster wake up and write the whole 4e Realms stuff off as just a dream.

 

[harlokin]

Actually- they could have Elminster wake up and write the whole 4e Realms stuff off as just a dream.

Death to Eminster, The Harpers, and the cheaters of Mystra!

 

[Herschel]

The only logical choice would be to follow what happened in 4E, that way you can play in any era you want. I'm currently in a game where we're at the very tail end of the Spellplague and it's pretty awesome even though some would try to argue it's an "unsupported niche".

 

[Thaumaturge]

If they are truly presenting D&Dnext as an 'edition for all', then they should probably support all eras. Since that wasn't an option, I voted 4e, because I think that continuity should continue.

People don't like the Spell-plague, or the Time of Troubles, so I could definitely see a reboot all the way back to the beginning. An 'ultimate' version, or the like, would work well to mix and match the best of each era, similar to the 4e Dark Sun reboot.

I think the most disastrous of all options would be to roll it back to the 3e era and pretend like 4e never happened. It did happen; those books were written, purchased, and read. People played in games and adventured in those timelines. One of the draws of FR, from what I can tell, is the support of all of the fiction, and to attempt to invalid a swath of it seems unwise. A partial rollback would split the FR fanbase and endanger a WotC cashcow. I think that would be a mistake.

Thaumaturge.

 

[Shemeska]

The only logical choice would be to follow what happened in 4E, that way you can play in any era you want.

Except that by doing that, it by default imposes all of the various historical and cosmology retcons of 4e FR (having to swallow PoL stuff wholesale) onto the earlier periods of history. A compromise way of handling 4e FR compared to 1e-3e really shouldn't begin with "suck it up and accept all of 4e FR", should it?

I'd love to see it as an alternate timeline (because utterly ignoring that it ever happened probably won't happen), with either a novel or adventure being presented to allow for rewinding the clock and preventing it all from happening.

would split the FR fanbase and endanger a WotC cashcow. I think that would be a mistake.

That may have already happened.

 

[Herschel]

Except that by doing that, it by default imposes all of the various historical and cosmology retcons of 4e FR (having to swallow PoL stuff wholesale) onto the earlier periods of history. A compromise way of handling 4e FR compared to 1e-3e really shouldn't begin with "suck it up and accept all of 4e FR", should it?

It only "imposes" the 4E portions of the FR on to those playing in the 4E or after period of the Realms. So yes, suck it up and accept changes happened in 4E the same way they happened with the Time of Troubles and everything else. If you personally don't like it as a DM you can change what you'd like or you can play in any period of the Realms you would like. There's plenty of literature, etc. ongoing to make the Realms an evolving place. I play a game in the very tail end of the Spellplague now and it's great, even though some of the "changes" we're just discovering or are just coming in to play. I can run an "old school" Realms adventure too. I use some 1E modules for a game I run and they work just fine.

 

[Zireael]

I think keeping all the timelines is the way to go. As far as presentation is concerned, 3e was better.

 

[Ratinyourwalls]

It should be retired for a while, like Magic is doing with Dominaria. Returning to the same place over and over just makes the place become stale.

 

[tlantl]

I think the first thing you read upon opening the next version of the forgotten realms campaign setting is; "You awaken from the nightmare to find all is well in the realms."

Everything that came when the spell plague was alleged to have happened was a bad dream.

With that said, I don't much care one way or another. I feel for those whose favorite game world was ruined, much as I do for those who found their favorite game...


Let the next be more palatable to as many as it can. My world has remained much as it was before the first catastrophe. If the next is also catastrophic then I still have the system currently in use and will continue unabated.

 

[Scribble]

I'm in favor of simply giving it all and allowing the players to choose what era they want to use. Like they pretty much do with every Star Wars game system out there.