D&D 5E Baldur's Gate 3 will allow us to explore the whole city of Baldur's Gate Seamlessly

[R_J_K75]

Development time seems to have been pretty quick for a game of this scale (assuming it is released on schedule).

Before Larian, Beamdog had been trying to acquire the rights to make a BG3 for quite some time, and before that Black Isle/Obsidian worked on a BG3 (some of which ended up in Pillars of Eternity), but nether of those where this BG3.

I recall hearing rumblings about it years ago and thought it went through a few iterations so what you say makes sense

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

I recall hearing rumblings about it years ago and thought it went through a few iterations so what you say makes sense

I haven't heard of any Larian-specific issues with development of BG3.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

In the 5E era, the hard info on Calimshan is about 2 paragraphs in SCAG, which h amount to "the slaves were led in a revolution by a Chosen of Lathander, and overthrew their Genie Overlords (who took over between 3E and 4E) and banished them back to the Elemental Planes, and achieved their freedom." Leaves the details pretty wide open for a DM to do as they wish, same as moat areas outside the Sword Coast and Chult.

WotC figured out that an advancing timeline depressed sales and creates division in the fan base, so they just...stopped. There is still a calander and a year suggestion for the Campaign books, but easy enough to file that off and set it in the 1E/2E, 3E or 4E eras instead...or Greyhawk or Mystara for that matter. No metaplot results, no advancing timeline.

I don't know, the changes to the Forgotten Realms make any official 5e FR lore that comes out suspect to me. If I were an expert in the lore maybe I would know enough to immediately recognize and ignore what is based on changes that happened after my last point of official synchronization (around 1371), and just be able to selectively adopt details that seem interesting. But since I'm not an expert and I have a lot of 2e, and some 3e, material that I'm using as my primary resource, I can't really use anything they put out for 5e, because I'm not sure if it's based on some massive changes that were made for 4e and then when I need to connect things to the material I already have I look it up and realize they are completely incompatible, either because of the advancing timeline or because of retcons.

I'm still at a loss as to how to run Out of the Abyss (which I want to) in the 1370s, given how significant the timeline advancement was for Blingdenstone.

Because of that, I can basically only use the SCAG for crunch.

 

[Parmandur]

I don't know, the changes to the Forgotten Realms make any official 5e FR lore that comes out suspect to me. If I were an expert in the lore maybe I would know enough to immediately recognize and ignore what is based on changes that happened after my last point of official synchronization (around 1371), and just be able to selectively adopt details that seem interesting. But since I'm not an expert and I have a lot of 2e, and some 3e, material that I'm using as my primary resource, I can't really use anything they put out for 5e, because I'm not sure if it's based on some massive changes that were made for 4e and then when I need to connect things to the material I already have I look it up and realize they are completely incompatible, either because of the advancing timeline or because of retcons.

I'm still at a loss as to how to run Out of the Abyss (which I want to) in the 1370s, given how significant the timeline advancement was for Blingdenstone.

Because of that, I can basically only use the SCAG for crunch.

I mean,my experience is that it is easy-peasy to shift a bit, particularly if one is loose with "canon" (like, just put 1490 Blindenstone in 1e72, no big deal, the FR police won't come arrest you).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I don't know, the changes to the Forgotten Realms make any official 5e FR lore that comes out suspect to me. If I were an expert in the lore maybe I would know enough to immediately recognize and ignore what is based on changes that happened after my last point of official synchronization (around 1371), and just be able to selectively adopt details that seem interesting. But since I'm not an expert and I have a lot of 2e, and some 3e, material that I'm using as my primary resource, I can't really use anything they put out for 5e, because I'm not sure if it's based on some massive changes that were made for 4e and then when I need to connect things to the material I already have I look it up and realize they are completely incompatible, either because of the advancing timeline or because of retcons.

I'm still at a loss as to how to run Out of the Abyss (which I want to) in the 1370s, given how significant the timeline advancement was for Blingdenstone.

Because of that, I can basically only use the SCAG for crunch.

Which is why "canon" is bad for the game.

Your game takes place in your setting, the only correct version is what you decide. There is no possible way to "get it wrong".

 

[Parmandur]

Which is why "canon" is bad for the game.

Your game takes place in your setting, the only correct version is what you decide. There is no possible way to "get it wrong".

Which is, humorously enough to me, the canonical position. The 3E FRCS is at pains to point that out, and the 5E policy on "Canon" triples down on it.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Which is, humorously enough to me, the canonical position. The 3E FRCS is at pains to point that out, and the 5E policy on "Canon" triples down on it.

I think this is a place where you can use "ironically" correctly.

 

[Parmandur]

I think this is a place where you can use "ironically" correctly.

No doubt! The whole point is to provide re material to build a world, not to slavishly follow some "official" version.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I mean,my experience is that it is easy-peasy to shift a bit, particularly if one is loose with "canon" (like, just put 1490 Blindenstone in 1e72, no big deal, the FR police won't come arrest you).

Sure, but the closer I stick to what is published, the less work I have to do in that area, and the more time I have to devote to other parts of the campaigns I run. I want the fluff I have in the books to do the work for me. It's an encyclopedia, an atlas, etc, that I don't have to spend time and effort in. In order for it to fulfill that function, I need to be able to reference it and just treat it as accurate. (Part of the reason I do this is I treat the multiverse as my setting, and use homebrew worlds as well as published worlds. I'm already making new worlds, so when I'm also visiting a published I world, I'm not interested in reinventing it.)

I have a bunch of 2e books. I have the 3e FRCS, which mostly agrees with the 2e books.

Let's say my official date of "canon synchronization" between my setting and publications is in 1371 (which might be accurate, but I'd have to look it up).

Now let's say a party went to Blingdenstone in 1371, and I used the 2e and 3e material appropriate for that synchronization date. I referenced them and ran the sessions based on what I found in the books. And now let's say it's 1374 in our campaign and I want to run Out of the Abyss. But their version of Blingdenstone assumes over a hundred years have taken place since then. It's really hard to figure out how to make that work. I've even considered shenanigans like some sort of localized supernatural time compression affect, but that honestly isn't really satisfying.

My simple experience here is that you can't add a hundred years of change, then shift some things back to feel more like they did before, and then expect everyone can just us it whenever they want. The problem is that there are already too many details for that. You have to keep things much more vague than the Forgotten Realms have ever been for that to work. Otherwise you end up with a mess that only works for people who either don't know or don't care about details, have no previous edition commitments, or who are willing to spend time using the new material as suggestions to inform their creativity rather than ready to go reference material.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Now let's say a party went to Blingdenstone in 1371

Did they? How likely is that? If a particular party have visited a location previously, then you obviously use that version. But the Out of the Abyss campaign starts at 1st level, so the characters involved have never been to Blingdenstone, or anywhere else. It doesn't matter what version you use.