Points of Light and the Forgotten Realms

[William Ronald]

Unless the 4E realms is truly a "travesty", they'll lose about four customers in the long run, I suspect.

I'm a long-term FR fan, and I think this is a very good idea. The 2E and 3E Realms have filled up, frankly, with a lot of stupid crap. Stupid overpowered NPCs, stupid overpowered monster collectives that make no sense, just plain illogical stuff, and places that have near-zero "adventuring value", like Cormyr. The Forgotten Realms, is, at it's heart a very D&D setting - it's a world with multiple layers of forgotten cultures/empires, with more ruins to explore than you possibly ever could, and it's seen empires and kingdoms rise and fall constantly.

Having a few of the current kingdoms and cities fall is not going to "ruin" the setting or "destroy it's flavour" - not at it's core. What it is going to do, potentially, is take it back to more of it's 1E flavour, rather than the distinctly fruity mid-2E stuff, or the overdetailed, organisation-obsessed 3E nonsense.

Anyway, Ruin Explorer supports more ruins to explore, obviously. If those runs are the ghost-haunted ruins of Waterdeep, all the better! Maybe we can kick around Khelben's skull, or fight his lich or something? That'd be nice

Or Waterdeep could remain as a metropolis, but one beset by many perils. Maybe parts of the city are a bit dangerous or in ruins from the last 100 years. Or the city may be intact, but it may need to be liberated from a tyrant.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

How about we have a faux-holocaust, where the SS are the Taun Tekarn, Dwarven nazis, and the goblins represent the Jews? Would that go down well?

It's not terribly hard to find fantasy novels that are based on World War II, including the very real life villains.

So I'd say that, yeah, it goes down OK with consumers.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Several years ago, in the waning months of TSR, someone posted a nifty graphic showing the Faerun continent on one side of the planet and the Flanaess (sp?) continent on the other. At the time it was written off as a joke.

I thought the pseudo-Native American cultures were badly handled in the Mazteca supplements, but the staff of WotC would have to be smoking rubber cigars if they thought dropping Grayhawk on it would improve things.

I'm not advocating this, but given that both planets are very large, and at least Toril explicitly has another big undiscovered continent, what would the harm be? I mean, other than making the huge number of gods in each setting even larger.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Check out the big NPCs featured in any of the novels. Considering how well they sell, I doubt they're loathed by the Realms fans.

D&D players aren't the main market for those books, and they never have been. Just go to one of the message boards for R.A. Salvatore or the like if you disbelieve me - you think it's full of RPGers? It ain't. Most of the people who buy the FR novels have either never, or briefly played D&D - this was something even TSR knew, back in the day.

So it's bizarre to say "Drizzt bookz sell so people luv overpowered Mary-Sues thus the FR has to be full of overpowered Mary-Sues!", as you seem to be saying.

I do agree that you don't have to blow the world up. I just think it'd be nice to

Whizbang - You're missing the point on purpose, aren't you? The literally childish "CCC" creation equates black people and orcs. That's pretty rude, and somewhat sickening in it's crudity. I can't think of any "fantasy WW2" novels that have a direct holocaust equivalent, not even the ones by Harry Turtledove, so I'd challenge you to produce the novels you claim are so easy to find. I'd particularly like to see a well-selling example (the Turtledove ones were a disaster compared to any of his quasi-historical novels, I've heard).

William Ronald - Burnt. To. The. Ground. I swear. Keep somewhere more interesting. You can't have an apocalypse and have New York still standing for god's sake!

Grumpy Celt - That's a bloody terrifying prospect. Also irritating because in my FR that side of the world was partially in use, and they rather promised, some years ago, that they'd never develop it.

As for your equation, there's no evidence that we're getting that, is there? Certainly not from that novel sample. There's no evidence of "RIFTS" or "World of Darkness" bits at all.

Besides, taking the best bits from RIFTS and the WoD would improve the FR.

Of course that's the problem, would people who employ someone who writes about the "CCC" in all seriousness, really take the "best bits"? Seems unlikely.

My fear is that the new FR will, like the revised Dark Sun, "fall between two stools" as we say in Britain (do you say that in the US?). That is to say, it may change enough to put off the 3E FR-lovers, but not enough to pick up new fans. We'll see, though.

 

[an_idol_mind]

So it's bizarre to say "Drizzt bookz sell so people luv overpowered Mary-Sues thus the FR has to be full of overpowered Mary-Sues!", as you seem to be saying.

I'm not specifically commenting on Driz'zt. There are many others who both novel readers and gamers enjoy. Mirt the Moneylender comes to mind, as well as the Knights of Myth Drannor, many of the Harpers, and so on.

Also, if a lot of Realms fans are fans of the novels, blowing up the world would alienate them just as much, unless the novels occur in the game's past (which wouldn't be a bad idea, IMO).

I do agree that you don't have to blow the world up. I just think it'd be nice to

I don't disagree with you, and a Points of Light approach to the Realms would, in my mind, be more interesting than what's there now. But I'd feel really bad about the many fans out there who helped make the Realms so popular in the first place getting a royal screwjob in order to make the setting more marketable to the people out there who don't and might never like the world.

My fear is that the new FR will, like the revised Dark Sun, "fall between two stools" as we say in Britain (do you say that in the US?). That is to say, it may change enough to put off the 3E FR-lovers, but not enough to pick up new fans. We'll see, though.

That's the main reason I think a huge change to the setting would be a bad idea. Alienating your existing fan base in hopes of attracting a new fan base -- especially one that might already be playing dark fantasy settings like Midnight -- is not a terribly good idea unless that existing fan base is so small as to be insignificant. And if the latter were true and the Realms isn't profitable anymore, wouldn't it make more sense to lead off the 4th edition settings charge with, say, Eberron or a new setting rather than wrecking an old one?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That's the main reason I think a huge change to the setting would be a bad idea. Alienating your existing fan base in hopes of attracting a new fan base -- especially one that might already be playing dark fantasy settings like Midnight -- is not a terribly good idea unless that existing fan base is so small as to be insignificant. And if the latter were true and the Realms isn't profitable anymore, wouldn't it make more sense to lead off the 4th edition settings charge with, say, Eberron or a new setting rather than wrecking an old one?

To be honest, this is why I think they're not going to screw it up. WotC haven't really had any "marketing disasters" as far as I know, perhaps due to the whole "DON'T LOSE ANY MORE GODDAMN MONEY DANCEY!" deal when TSR got taken over, so I think they'll manage to change the FR without killing it.

I still say the main "cause for concern" about the new FR is the CCC. God I hope that's the worst thing in the setting.

By the way, they've already killed off the only likeable part of the Harpers, the rank and file, and idiotically retained the slimy leadership, so I think that pooch is screwed. The Knights of Myth Drannor are a dumb idea, because they fill the same exact role as the PCs, but they're much better at it and prettier and richer (dumb dumb dumb dumb thing to have in an RPG setting). Mirt the Moneylender will be dead by default unless he's spent that money on life-extension potions, if they're skipping forwards a hundred year, so at least he's not being "cruelly murdered".

I do think, as you say, continuing the FR books as novels set in the past might be sensible, at least until people get used to the idea of the new setting.

To be honest but a little crude, I gotta figure that WotC figure people will buy any crap that has R.A. Salvatore or Ed Greenwood written across the top in big gold letters, so I doubt it'll be hard selling the new setting to the fans of the novels. After all, Drizzt is still uberer-than-thou, and a still his bizarrely smugly-angsty self. God help us Elminster, Khelben, The Simbul and so on all survive too.

PS - If burning Waterdeep is wrong, would it be too much to ask to have Cormyr completely sacked and burned? I'd particularly like the royal family and Vangerdhast dead if that's not too much to ask. I could set any adventure in Vangerdhast's tomb. That's another one that would please my players immensely.

 

[Elsenrail]

I really like the new FR preview. The "old" setting was too full of heroes for me - not enough space for young, fresh adventurers, who want to save the world, because there are already tons of heroes. Dark and more mature FR? I'm in. I just hope they get rid off some uber-characters as well, like all those Chosen of Mystra.

Make way for the new!

 

[William Ronald]

Ruin Explorer, maybe an option for water deep is to have it resemble Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War. So, that would be one possiblilty. Or if Waterdeep becomes a city whose mention strikes fear into people, that would be a change. So, if Waterdeep bites the dust as the metropolis of the Realms, which city should become a metropolis in its place?(William will do, by the way, as I do use my real name here.)

hopeless, having some races from Eberron might be accomplished by having some refugees from Cyre. However, I was wondering if WotC might be drawing in real world mythologies even more into the Realms. (Having a bunch of new deities show up with their worshippers would certainly be causing a bit of theological turmoil.)

If WotC is going to make great changes in the Realms, my hope is that we will see REAL examples of heroism from some of the current NPCs that would be eliminated. Sacrifice is sometimes part of heroism, and I think that a few heroic stories of last stands might be inspirational to new and old players -- as well as be the spur of some adventure ideas. (Maybe some intrepid adventurers will want to check out the site of the Symbul's Last Stand?)

 

[Ruin Explorer]

(Maybe some intrepid adventurers will want to check out the site of the Symbul's Last Stand?)

...so they can take her stuff? Hey, it had to be said! I'd love that, though. You could reverse my hatred of a lot of these NPCs if they "went down fighting" and left cool heirlooms in the form of personalised magic items and so on, that could be used to once again fight evil.

As for Waterdeep, I'd like to see it replaced by a new city, one which is still in the process of being built. I wouldn't weep if the options you presented were how it was, though. Perhaps the "Beiruit" thing is a little "done" in the Realms, I seem to remember like two-three cities that happened to in 2E...

 

[phadeout]

Maybe they'll just wipe out most of the high powered people, I can see that happening.

How to retire Elminister but keep him around? Make a Hogwarts school and turn Elminister into Dumbledore... lol.