New Forgotten Realms designed by FR haters?

[SPECTRE666]

Going to the original topic, dunno if it was said.... but I hardly doubt a design team that has Ed Greenwood on it could be described as 'FR-hating' seeing as he invented the Realms.

It's propaganda.


And Time of Troubles did suck, imho.

True, but WotC told Ed what was happening to the Setting at GENCON 2005. That was after most of the changes were decided apon.

SPECTRE

 

[Uzzy]

Going to the original topic, dunno if it was said.... but I hardly doubt a design team that has Ed Greenwood on it could be described as 'FR-hating' seeing as he invented the Realms.

It's propaganda.

A quote here, from Ed Greenwood himself.

This is indeed the Big Risk in all of this, the “roll of the dice” that I wish someone had never decided to make (because I personally value the ongoing development of a shared and unbroken imaginary Grand History of a fictional fantasy setting as something magnificent in itself, an achievement we should all continue to contribute to).
Yet it’s happening regardless of my personal wants, and I choose to be onboard trying to paddle and steer, rather than left behind swimming in the water, calling out that perhaps we should have set a different course.

Source

Hardly seems as if he's the most enthusiastic participant ever. Of further importance would be the fact he only worked on Returned Abier, not the actual Realms.

 

[Uzzy]

And a great thing, too. Never liked the "real-world" gods in FR, with Tyr and Mielikki as the two big offenders (and, of course, the whole Egyptian pantheon in Mulhorand...). Torm does the job much better, I think, and he's a FR deity from the start.

While you may have a point with Mulhorand, I quite liked Tyr, Mielikki, Loviatar etc. Heck, Sune is Aphrodite, Lathander is Apollo, Selúne is Selene and Shar is Nyx, if you want to take a very loose view of the differences between the real world counterparts and the FR gods.

That said, I loved the Triad. Three different aspects of Paladinhood, Torm being the destroyer of evil, Tyr being the lawgiver, and Ilmater being the one who alleviated the suffering of the common people. It added something to the Realms, something I enjoyed.

 

[teitan]

There is no shortage of comic book writers, and they all manage to craft good stories in a vast shared world.

You still reading comic books? Marvel seems to ignore anything from before 2000, or seeks to alter it beyond recognition. They published a best of Spider-man HC series and NONE of it was from before JMS took over. Heck, it was JMS run which pales in comparison to Lee, Stern, DeFalco, and Michelenie. Roger Stern was asked to pitch a Doc Ock Year One story back when Spidey 2 was about to come out and they rejected it because it used too much continuity and went with a story that was not canon, even using Ock's more current costume rather than the classic attire the story would have called for...

DC has Geoff Johns thank god. LOL

 

[Primal]

Going to the original topic, dunno if it was said.... but I hardly doubt a design team that has Ed Greenwood on it could be described as 'FR-hating' seeing as he invented the Realms.

It's propaganda.


And Time of Troubles did suck, imho.

I think it sucked, too; not only had my players read the novels by the time I tried to introduce it to "my" Realms (by running the official adventures), but my campaigns also suffered from losing Bane, Bhaal and Myrkul -- all of who were my favorite deities (and their followers were my favorite villains as a DM). How could I replace them with Cyric?

It's wasn't just me; Myrkul and Xvim were very popular among the DMs I know (for example, in one of the campaigns I'm playing in we're still hunting the Crown of Horns after all these years).

Then, during 2E, Xvim ascended to divinity, and I slowly grew to like him enough to introduce the Risen Godson to my then-current campaign (and I foreshadowed it in a major way). And what did they do next? Killed him, that's what they did; turned out it had been the "new" Bane (I had pictured Bane as Witch King of Angmar-ish, but now he appeared as a naked, green and bald giant... ) in disguise. So, overnight, Bane had returned... but not into my campaign. I decided to go with Cyricists, for a while, so that I could "play up" the ascension of Bane (Xvimists quickly "faded" into the background as their god struggled against his father). I began to like Cyric, too, as years went by, and thought I would never use Bane again in my Realms. And what happened next... is that Cyric is imprisoned for a 1000 years. *Sigh*. Yeah, Bane would still be a choice for me, if I chose to run 4E FR, but his "new looks" don't appeal to me (even less his new symbol, the pronged weird claw-thing).

Damn you, design team... why have you always killed/imprisoned my favorite evil deities? If you had to kill someone, why not the "Gothic Chakram Chick", i.e. oh-so-overused Shar?

On-Topic: I don't think they hate FR; they just don't have any great passions about it (IIRC none of the WoTC staff had run FR campaigns in-house for years). Ed, who certainly loves the Realms, was given a "new" corner of FR to write about, so that the fans couldn't claim he was left out; yet his work would not "jeopardize" their new goal for less details in the main areas, because it would be about a relatively distant part of the setting.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

Ya know, I've thought this for some time.

Why not have realms campaigns run at different eras?

You could do the "far future" era past the spellplague (do 1000 years, not just 100).

You could have ancient netheril.

You could have the standard realms.



You'd have interconnectivity, multiple related worlds, and flexibility.


I could run my campaign in any, and even TIME TRAVEL between them!

 

[Primal]

Ah, but that's the genius of the Grey Box: Sembia is undefined and wide open for DMs to use as they see fit.

I was considering placing Freeport in it, actually.

How about replacing Luskan with it, or calling Freeport Luskan? I think it would fit perfectly.

 

[Hussar]

Honestly, I think most of the reaction to the ToT modules is due to the fact that these modules are very badly written adventures. Very heavy handed, extremely railroady and they sideline the PC's in favor of Mary Sue style NPC's in a number of places.

While I'm sure some of it is 2e backlash, there are some pretty solid reasons for not liking these modules.

 

[Shemeska]

Honestly, I think most of the reaction to the ToT modules is due to the fact that these modules are very badly written adventures. Very heavy handed, extremely railroady and they sideline the PC's in favor of Mary Sue style NPC's in a number of places.

While I'm sure some of it is 2e backlash, there are some pretty solid reasons for not liking these modules.

And see, that's a perspective I'm not familiar with. I never played the ToT modules, or even read them. I'm familiar with the ToT via the novels and later sourcebooks touching upon them. If the modules were that railroady, I can easily see how it would sour people on the events.

 

[Wormwood]

If the modules were that railroady, I can easily see how it would sour people on the events.

I thought the novels were okay, but the modules were *awful*. They are shameful testimonials to the art of poor adventure design, useful only as a threat to naughty players who refuse to eat their vegetables.

That said, I don't know anyone who actually played the stupid things (a quick perusal cured most groups that I knew). In my experience, the ToT primarily pissed off those who liked the Realms as they were, and many of them blamed 2e as the catalyst for this unwelcome change.

That said, Forgotten Realms Adventures was such a fun read for me that I got over my initial nerdrage fairly quickly.