How is FR changing with 4E?

[ProfessorCirno]

One of the design goals was to make it more accessible to a new DM and new players. Considering the large amount of material available for FR in past editions and books, I can see it being very intimidating to gain mastery over. So, when people talk about the demotion/destruction of many gods, they are referring to shrinking the FR cosmology from 100+ deities to about 25. I can understand how this tweaks some noses, but, for the new DM 125 deities is probably 100 too many

1) It takes quite literally seconds to look something up in the book or online if you're curious about one of the gods. Not every campaign has every single god playing a big role - most campaigns won't have any gods playing a big role. They put their choice of deity on the character sheet, and if they're a cleric or paladin you briefly look it up to see general guidelines they should be acting on. If the new DM can't do that, then the new DM would find D&D too boring to play anyways.

2) That doesn't change the fact that the WAY the gods are being written out is horrendous. Again, Tyr killing Helm? Lathander becoming Amunator (despite his entire clergy denying this)? For that matter, HOW is he Amunator - Amunator is lawful neutral, which no longer exists. Unless he's now lawful good, which doesn't answer ANY of the questions, and just introduces so goddamn many more.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

1) It takes quite literally seconds to look something up in the book or online if you're curious about one of the gods. Not every campaign has every single god playing a big role - most campaigns won't have any gods playing a big role. They put their choice of deity on the character sheet, and if they're a cleric or paladin you briefly look it up to see general guidelines they should be acting on. If the new DM can't do that, then the new DM would find D&D too boring to play anyways.

It might take seconds to get the information, but it takes a lot longer to digest it. And considering that the gods are not isolated, you will end with a long tail of extra articles you might feel forced to read because some important detail or story element might be there.

2) That doesn't change the fact that the WAY the gods are being written out is horrendous. Again, Tyr killing Helm? Lathander becoming Amunator (despite his entire clergy denying this)? For that matter, HOW is he Amunator - Amunator is lawful neutral, which no longer exists. Unless he's now lawful good, which doesn't answer ANY of the questions, and just introduces so goddamn many more.

Questions are good. Even gods can change their alignment, and more importantly - Lawful Neutral might just be Unaligned. If 4E had no alignment system at all, would this mean Amunator can't exist, because he had an alignment?

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It looks to me as if the FR 4E might have more appeal to me then the previous version. At least if they manage to keep the number of high level NPC Wizards down, reduce the pantheon to a manageable level, and don't overdetail too much stuff with elaborate backstories.

 

[Echohawk]

WotC has also announced that there will only be three books for each campaign (whether they uphold it is another story) which will include the campaign guide, player's guide, and a module that will take you through several levels.

Not quite. They are only planning three initial books for each setting (campaign guide, player's guide, adventure), but I think they've left the door firmly open to produce additional products for a setting, if there is demand, and they think extra products will sell.

In other words, if we do see a "FR2: Further Adventures in the Realms" it won't be because WotC has failed to "uphold" some agreement with fans to only produce three 4e Realms product.

 

[Chauzu]

I think I'm just going to end up returning to my homebrewed "Ice Age" Faerun setting. I'm still going to buy the 4e FR though, probably.

 

[Steely Dan]

I have been a big Realms fan since about 1989, and I am totally up for FR to get a face-lift. I became disillusioned with the setting before even 3rd Ed hit the streets – too bloated and polluted, IMO.

I felt like I could walk down to my travel agent and she would tell me, in detail, about every destination I could take a vacation on Toril.

The only thing I'm not too thrilled about is that we have dusky, rough trade boy gracing the cover of the new main campaign setting book and dragonborn glomming on.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

The facelift might work out well, or not. I have no way of knowing until I actually read the book, so I will withhold judgment until then.

And since I don't have a currently active FR campaign running, I don't have as much stake in the old setting as some others here.

 

[Rechan]

A GM has control over where his campaign is based and what races, classes, gods and storylines are included in his game. This is a core paradigm of any campaign. Basic table-top gaming 101. So given that, I really don't understand how a large amount of optional Gods, NPC's and history that is already in the GM's hands to keep or toss, is such a problem that it requires deleting that very same content.

There are two issues here.

First, there is such a thing as Too Much Information. Every nook and cranny of FR is fleshed out. There's no "Blank slate" that a DM can just say "This is mine" and put stuff where he wants. Or if there is, it's so greatly overshadowed that you'd have to dig and dig and dig through mounds of lore before you found a place that was "empty".

Second, if you're playing in The Realms, it's easy to run into The Realms Player. The guy who has followed FR since the Grey box. He can tell you where Elminster's Lover 3891's underthings were thrown. When you're playing with This guy, it's difficult to change the realms because he's sitting there saying "That's not how it is in the book". Also, dealing with THis Guy is intimidating, because he knows everything, and it's hard to surprise him.

 

[Leatherhead]

I, for one, am glad they got rid of most of the powerful npcs, and cut down on allot of stuff. Especially now that the new guy of my gaming group started reading the dark elf trilogy and getting the rest of the players to remember the times when they started out playing in FR. Now if they all get together and decide they want to play FR again, I wont have to track down as much information to appease them.

The novels may be fun to read, but they are not fun for when you are a DM and your players expect things to more or less resemble their favorite stories. The 20+ supplement books are useful for getting all the necessary information, but I don't know anyone who can just go out and pick up that many books in order to sift out all the juicy bits.

Oh, and it just never made sense to me how any one world could have that many high powered people in it, and not get blown to smithereens. There are other minor nitpicks I have as well, but none that irk me quite so much as that.

 

[Steely Dan]

*snip*

Absolutely!

'Hey, that's not where that tree-stump is, and its name is…'

 

[Keefe the Thief]

1) It takes quite literally seconds to look something up in the book or online if you're curious about one of the gods. Not every campaign has every single god playing a big role - most campaigns won't have any gods playing a big role. They put their choice of deity on the character sheet, and if they're a cleric or paladin you briefly look it up to see general guidelines they should be acting on. If the new DM can't do that, then the new DM would find D&D too boring to play anyways.

2) That doesn't change the fact that the WAY the gods are being written out is horrendous. Again, Tyr killing Helm? Lathander becoming Amunator (despite his entire clergy denying this)? For that matter, HOW is he Amunator - Amunator is lawful neutral, which no longer exists. Unless he's now lawful good, which doesn't answer ANY of the questions, and just introduces so goddamn many more.

It´s Amaunator.