D&D 5E Ed Greenwood to write 5E's Forgotten Realms

[delericho]

But, by all means, continue stretching you analogies.

Your analogy, from when you said:

It's like claiming that any RPG set in the latter half of the 20th century makes the PCs "largely irrelevant" because other people have the power to declare nuclear war and render their accomplishments moot.

 

[Argyle King]

Imagine if we get a repeat of Monte, and he quits while in the middle of the project.

 

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

Here, a 40 minute rant about what I think of 4E Forgotten Realms.

Anyway, relevant here and in short is I will believe this when I see it. WotC is already back off of promises made about 5E in terms of game mechanics. We will see what the final product looks like in terms of 5E FR and until then I refuse to give a damn.

 

[Alzrius]

My apologies, everyone. I promoted this to a news item and attempted to change the date of the the posts to ensure it would appear near the top of the news (unfortunately it took a few days before anybody pointed the thread out to me!). Unfortunately, I screwed it up and all the posts are now showing in the wrong order.

They should be OK from now on. Sorry about that. Hopefully you can continue the conversation OK.

This pretty well encapsulates how much sense I think the 4E Forgotten Realms makes, and showcases the need to retcon it back to coherency.

 

[Alzrius]

Greenwood having creative control for the 5e Realms has me listening, for the first time in years where FR is concerned. But if they want to get me back after my interest in it cratered after seeing 4e turn it into something barely resembling FR, they'll probably need to let Ed and some others (Boyd? Schend? Either of them too please?) have complete editorial control to redact or reboot in part or in whole.

But this is promising news. We shall see.

This pretty well sums it up for me. While I'm sympathetic to the "why did they destroy something with an established fanbase to try and appeal to the people who already hate it?" line of thought, I wonder if that's asking the wrong question.

While the 4E FR Campaign Guide was written in part by Ed Greenwood and several other big names, I can't help but wonder if there was a pervasive attitude of "it's so hard trying to keep track of this setting" among the 4E FR designers - that blowing up the Realms was their idea to make it easier for themselves, rather than the fans.

If that's the case, I think it summarizes why I dislike their approach. The Realms, like all campaign settings, should be run by people who actually enjoy them, rather than those who find them to be burdensome. Putting guys like Eric L. Boyd and Stephen E. Schend back at the helm would be a huge leap forward for the setting.

 

[Dr. Bull]

Please... Everyone relax. It's a campaign world. Use what you like, disregard the rest...

If you don't like Elminster, don't include him. Personally, I love the maps, the pantheon, and the rich history...

I am grateful for Ed Greenwood's world and I am happy to hear that he will be in charge of it once again!

 

[Otakkun]

I love my old realms. And if they are coming back with 5E, then I'll be back with them as well.

I've always found the rants about old El to be nothing but childish ranting. So yes, he is a powerhouse, mage extraordinary and will probably always be a magintude more powerful than any PC out there.... so what? If your DM uses him as a Deus Ex Machina in his adventures then that's HIS fault, not old El's. Even if he's not there, your DM is going to change it with old Pete is that's what he likes.

Finding El a nuisance because of what he's capable of doing is a null point. So what? You also want all gods wiped out because they are too powerful?

The rants about the more notorious characters on the realms all fall into the same category to me, it's like saying "why work for a living if Bill Gates could give me enough money to live my life twice with just the interest he gets in a month on his bank accounts". So what? He's obviously not going to appear out of nowhere and say "hey dude I'll make your life easier because I can and I don't have anything better to do". He's got his own life to live, just like El has his own tribulations.

Anyway, enough ranting. I'm glad to get Ed back in FR, let's just hope he manages to do some damage control and make the realms interesting again.

 

[an_idol_mind]

Finding El a nuisance because of what he's capable of doing is a null point. So what? You also want all gods wiped out because they are too powerful?

In my experience, folks dislike Elminster not because he's so powerful but because the published material for the Realms really shoves him in everybody's face. He began as a spokesperson for the Realms, but sometime during the 2nd edition era, he became pretty insufferable.

Take a look at any of his novels. Find a female character. Skip ahead 20 pages, and odds are good that said female character is stripped bare and offering herself to Elminster.

Or take a look at modules like the awful Time of Troubles modules, where Elminster basically exists to mock the PCs and force them to follow the plot and where we get treated to passages like this:

If any PCs refuse, Elminster will shrug, say, "Be nothing, then," in tones of cold scorn, and turn them invisible by means of a spell of his own – invisibility that does not wear off for 3-12 days, and cannot be removed by other magic short of a limited wish, except by Elminster himself.

If PCs press Elminster for informal tion [sic] as to what they should do, and why, he will hurry on toward the temple, smiling, and say, "All in good time, all in good time…save the world first; ask questions later!"

If any PC should attack Elminster, or try to sneak away, they will find themselves levitated sixty feet straight up in the air, helpless to move or undo this magic (despite any spells they might try).

Yeah, Elminster can be used well in a game. Yes, he is sometimes written well. But if anybody played the game in the 1990s, they got this stuff shoved down their throat ALL THE TIME. And while you could ignore all the supplements that talked about how funny, powerful, wise, and handsome he was, ignoring Realmslore kinda misses part of the fun about the Realms.

It's not really about Elminster's power - if it was, folks would hate the Simbul even more. It really boils down to some really bad writing that, while it is getting far into the rearview these days, still leaves a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths.

 

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

The Chosen were problematic, but that was because they were goads for the DMs to use to punish the party without retribution. However, they were a small part of the setting and 4E didn't really get rid of them or change their purpose. Rather than "fix" what was broken about FR, 4E just broke lots of stuff that was working.

 

[Mark Oliva]

I doubt very much that 5E - with or without Ed Greenwood - will be able to resurrect the magic of the original AD&D 1E grey box. Too much has been mangled too thoroughly to ever make sense of the Realms again, and gee golly whillikers, Ed's getting old and probably pretty tired too.