New Forgotten Realms designed by FR haters?

[Primal]

The burdon of lore I'm talking about in so far as writers are concerned is the lore contradicts a story they want to tell, so they can't tell it, or they have to heavily modify it to make it fit.

And how is the different from authors writing for Eberron? I just don't see the difference between reading a lot, and reading...almost as much. And, And, unless they're offering a finished manuscript to the publisher, why can't you just write your story based on the relevant material? If you absolutely want to change a detail, you can discuss it with the publisher, and I don't see a problem with it unless you want to make major "shake-ups" to the whole are your story is based in. And it's not like the Realms didn't get its share of RSEs in novels, right?

Inspired to do your job, and "doing your job" are two different things. It's possible to still meet your demanded work output without being inspired, but that's all you're doing. Just meeting your deadlines with something that meets the criteria. Inspiration helps you meet those deadlines with material that goes above and beyond what would otherwise "meet expected criteria."

Sure, Heath ledger could have just played a part as "the joker." He could have just done the lines, and moved on, but instead he was inspired to add somethign to the role. He went above and beyond and consequently helped the film do the same.

And I feel somewhat bad for you if your employer is that hard nosed that they never accept any employee input. My company is going through some changes right now, partially inspired by customer demand, but a whole lot of it was inspired by employee thoughts and opinions on what will help us do our jobs more effectively and less stressfully.

You're correct -- indeed, professional writing is mostly about "doing your job", whether you're inspired or not. You just need to sit down and write, or you'll never meet deadlines. Now, speaking of fantasy authors who write for existing settings, in some cases you probably "connect" to the setting and feel more inspired than in others, but the fact is that you can't moan and groan to the publisher about not being able to write because the setting doesn't inspire you enough and therefore it needs to change. Of course, if several of your "co-workers" feel the same way, there may be something wrong, but if the reason is simply that you don't want to do research before you start writing, you are probably not of the type fit to do it for living.

Employee imput is one thing, but it's a bit different in the public institutions -- feedback is great, but rarely leads to any major changes. After all, once everyone has done something in a certain way for the last thirty, forty years, it's useless to try to reason about how it could be done in a better and more efficient way (I've tried this many times, believe me).

Anyway, your company is clearly a private business, and they listen to their customers and employees; that's great. But I can't imagine a Microsoft freelancer telling Bill Gates that "I'm not inspired by this Vista and I need to read too many manuals, so how about we scrap it all and start to work on another OS".

As far as FR is concerned, apparently WoTC thought that enough FR fans (and customers who were not fans) were unhappy with FR, and took a risk by turning it all upside down. New stories aplenty, sure, but to me it seems (and this is all based on anecdotal evidence, but anyway) that the risk didn't pay off as well as they thought it would (hence the "three books per setting" policy, methinks, at least for FR -- I suspect Eberron might get more support if it sells better).

The very fact that someone else's milleage might vary, pretty much invalidates this statement. There's a whole lotta stuff out there for FR. Just because YOU didn't care about it doesn't mean it didn't matter to others. (Or effect what could and couldn't be done in the realms as they stood.)

Well, do YOU consider the Marco Volo-goodness or Demihumans/Priests/Wizards of the Realms actually relevant products containing much Realmslore? A lot of the stuff they produced during that era are not actually high on my "must-own-and-use" list. Feel free to argue about it, but if we asked a thousand FR fans who've been aboard since those days, I don't think their opinion would vary a lot from mine.

If there are enough of you it might happen. Which I'd be cool with too. New stories.

Yep, new stories! I hope that the designers and everyone else who feels the same way are monitoring this thread...

 

[Nivenus]

No.

I can't really spite people for disliking things in the new edition of FR (even though I like alot, though not all, of it) but this is a misinterpretation or straight out lie.

Let's look at the development team, shall we, who divided the work roughly equally between them?

Bruce R. Cordell
This is the single most reasonable designer to levy the charge against, but only because he's had little work in FR. He's also the one who's responsible for many of the things old-school FR players dislike the most - such as the new importance of aberrant creatures like aboleths (or as some call them, "tentacled beasties"), which, looking at his bibliography, seems to be a preoccupation of his. However, he's an FR novelist, which if anything should show an interest in the setting. He also worked on the Underdark supplement for 3rd edition, so he isn't alien to the setting.

Ed Greenwood
Ummm... anyone claiming Greenwood hates FR has as much credibility as someone claiming Lucas hates Star Wars (not to say that Lucas hasn't done some things that fans such as myself vehemently dislike). Greenwood created the setting and indeed, comments on forums suggest that he's responsible for much of what's in 4e - such as the return to player-focused FR or the primordials (their role in FR ties into an idea he'd had running around for some years called the "Sleeping Gods"). Not to mention that he's responsible for an entire chapter of the book - the one devoted to the new continent Returned Abeir. Greenwood very much likes FR and, from all indications, very much likes 4e FR.

Chris Sims
Chris Sims is somewhat unfamiliar with the setting, much like Cordell, but he's worked on a few sourcebooks such as The Shining South prior to his work on the FRCG. Overall, he's pretty new to WotC's roster in all regards, not just for FR. He did, however, work on Eberron in 3.5, which may be part of the reason why he might be interpreted as hostile to FR (which is ridiculous, if you ask me).

Rob Heinsoo
Rob Heinsoo was the creative lead for 4e in general so I can understand why those who don't like 4e would level blame against him. But he's not hostile to FR. In fact, he was one of the lead designers for the 3e FRCS as well as its Monstrous Compendium companion.

Logan Bonner
Bonner's another outsider imported from Eberron. This hardly means he's actually hostile, however.

Robert J. Schwalb
Robert J. Schwalb's originally from Green Ronin but he transferred over to D&D in late 3.5 for work on Tome of Magic and Fiendish Codex II. His work in 4e seems focused primarily on magic and its use, given his work on AP, AV, and DP. He doesn't appear hostile to FR, but I will admit he's not very experienced with either.

Rich Baker
Not to be confused with the similarly named Keith Baker and Rich Burlew . Rich Baker's been with FR since 2e. He's openly devoted to the Realms and openly supportive of it. He interacts with the fans on a regular basis and is understanding of their issues with changes to the setting. The only reason I can imagine someone would say he hates FR is because of his openly stating some issues with a few of FR's pre-4e characteristics (such as its transplanted Earth cultures or the sheer number and the concept of Ao).

 

[Mouseferatu]

Well, as far as the designers/authors go... they get *paid* to read that stuff.

Just to be clear... No, we don't.

We get paid by the word. Period. Any outside research or reading that we have to do is just that--outside.

I get paid the same whether I'm writing for core D&D or for Forgotten Realms, and if the former requires I know material from four books, and the latter from twenty-four... Well, it's more cost-effective for me and for WotC to keep me on the former. And there comes a point where the ratio of effort to payment simply makes further research non-viable for the amount of income.

If that becomes the case for the bulk of freelancers, Forgotten Realms becomes unsustainable. Now, that specific point of no return differs from freelancer to freelancer, and some begin with a greater knowledge of FR than others. But that doesn't change the fact that, as people move on and new people become writers, the settings that require heavy research beyond a certain point simply cease attracting skilled writers.

Is that what happened with FR? I have no idea. But claiming that we "get paid" to keep up with this degree of material is simply false.

 

[The Little Raven]

Writing for Forgotten Realms was no more difficult than writing for STAR WARS.

Having worked on a licensed property in my previous job as a programmer, I can tell you that creating authorized content for an existing license is a pain in the ass. You pitch your totally awesome story, and then meet up with some guy from the company that explains in detail why your awesome story totally sucks for the license. You get reams of information that you have to cross-reference to ensure consistency. You get a list of "do's and don'ts." Then, when you finally get it all together, they excise one-quarter of it because they feel that it doesn't add value to the license.

Anyone suggesting that working on official products for a world with the depth of content that FR has (millions of words) is easy has never worked on something of that nature before.

 

[Shemeska]

Playing devils advocate perhaps

Is that what happened with FR? I have no idea. But claiming that we "get paid" to keep up with this degree of material is simply false.

Well, I assumed that he was talking about someone working for WotC full-time, and not freelancers.

To be fair though, I would approach writing something for FR as a bit daunting, depending on what region of the world we're talking about. Anything vaguely planar or fiendish related to FR, not a problem at all for me, but anything else I'd feel compelled to seriously read the source material in depth before feeling comfortable writing something new on the topic. If I didn't feel I knew the base material enough to do it justice, I wouldn't try.

But you freelance as a full-time job, and anyone else doing so would have to take something like that into consideration, because as you said, it does impact a job's cost effectiveness given the research time involved. Now I don't by any means have writing as a full-time job, so I can worry less about such things and can afford to absorb myself in a dozen books to pick out obscure tidbits of lore if I want, but how many people like yourself that are actually in WotC's sights can say the same? I don't know. I won't say it's not a problem for WotC to get writers who really know the bulk of the setting's lore. Writing for 4e FR is probably easier since much of the pre-4e lore is irrelevant now, or just retconned entirely.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Well, I assumed that he was talking about someone working for WotC full-time, and not freelancers.

Even if he was, though, those guys are insanely busy with writing, designing, developing, meetings, etc.

Obviously, a certain degree of familiarity with past material is indeed to be expected, even demanded. I'm not saying it's not. I do a pretty hefty amount of research for some projects, even as it is. (You'd be surprised how much re-reading of old planar material I did before writing the first Codex of Betrayal article.)

But the level of familiarity being discussed, with settings as in-depth as old FR, simply isn't something that most writers, be they full-timers or freelance, can reasonably acquire if they don't already have it. (And most who already have it will eventually reach a point where they can't keep up.) Yes, there will always be a few who are that familiar, but they're the minority.

 

[MichaelSomething]

So the solution to the problem is to find people who know a lot about The Forgotten Realms and have them write all the material? I guess all the Forgotten Realms uber-fans need to start stepping up.

Better get writing Mournblade94

 

[El Mahdi]

As to the Star Wars comparison, with Star Wars books there actually are people at Skywalker Ranch who have the job of checking work for accuracy with the setting/cannon. I'm not sure if WoTC has a department that dedicated to this like Skywalker Ranch does, but I'd doubt it. A library of material, Yes. A Library staff? I'd doubt it. The best bet you'd have for FR, other than reading and researching everything yourself, would be to ask Ed Greenwood himself. But it's very likely that with the shared nature of FR, it's possible even he doesn't know everything.

 

[Primal]

Even if he was, though, those guys are insanely busy with writing, designing, developing, meetings, etc.

Obviously, a certain degree of familiarity with past material is indeed to be expected, even demanded. I'm not saying it's not. I do a pretty hefty amount of research for some projects, even as it is. (You'd be surprised how much re-reading of old planar material I did before writing the first Codex of Betrayal article.)

But the level of familiarity being discussed, with settings as in-depth as old FR, simply isn't something that most writers, be they full-timers or freelance, can reasonably acquire if they don't already have it. (And most who already have it will eventually reach a point where they can't keep up.) Yes, there will always be a few who are that familiar, but they're the minority.

I can understand your point there, Ari, because like you said, it's a bit different for freelancers (i.e. you're only paid on basis of word count). However, if you're a designer or author on a regular payroll, I think it's part of the job. In my job, I need to read a lot of books which are "required reading" (I'm a librarian), and let me tell you that I couldn't care less about most of them. It's also expected that I keep up with what's happening in the publishing industry, and all-too-many websites related to literature and libraries. It's all part of my job description. If I get to read (every once in a while) something that I actually *like*, it feels great. In an ideal world, I could just concentrate on reading fantasy and science fiction and RPGs, and concentrate only on them in collection development. Yet this is what I chose to do for a living, so I'm not complaining.

If the full-time designers are really that busy, to me it implies that something should be done; whether they need more staff or simply some adjustments to schedules/how things are done, I don't know. Just let me ask something: will Eberron be "rebooted" as well as soon as the current authors are no longer writing for it, so that the "new crowd" won't have to read 50+ accessories plus novels just to get the facts right? And is it really the best way to handle things? I mean, there are pretty good Wikis out there, and maybe WoTC could co-operate with the fans in updating them, so that freelancers and staffers would always find up-to-date information quickly?

 

[Obryn]

If the full-time designers are really that busy, to me it implies that something should be done; whether they need more staff or simply some adjustments to schedules/how things are done, I don't know.

I'd say, in FR's case, they agreed that something should be done.

And then they did it. So we have this thread.

As for hiring more staff... I doubt that WotC can afford to keep a full-time Realmslore Keeper on staff, given recent layoffs.

-O