The funny thing is... the Dragonborn were *already* part of the 3E lore (their history and flavour was introduced in 'Dragons of Faerun', I think); it's just that they were the "wrong" kind of Dragonborn, and therefore had to be killed and replaced with the 'Returned Abeir'-stuff. Why not just "retcon" their nature? Or claim that they were warped/altered by the Spellplague to match the 4E lore? Man, they made a lot of weird choices with these changes -- even when there was an easier and more consistent way to do it.
Is there relaly a need for 4th ed Realms changes just for the *mechanics*?
- Thread starter Silverblade The Ench
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The funny thing is... the Dragonborn were *already* part of the 3E lore (their history and flavour was introduced in 'Dragons of Faerun', I think); it's just that they were the "wrong" kind of Dragonborn, and therefore had to be killed and replaced with the 'Returned Abeir'-stuff. Why not just "retcon" their nature? Or claim that they were warped/altered by the Spellplague to match the 4E lore? Man, they made a lot of weird choices with these changes -- even when there was an easier and more consistent way to do it.
3E's Dragonborn were problematic, because they were members of other races turned into draconic humanoids, rather than a race of their own.
I think that blaming mechanics for changing the Realms so greatly is vastly over simplifying it. There were other reasons, such as the following examples:
* The geography of the Realms were so well established and explored that there wasn't much new territory to explore for players. The changes opened up new areas, changed areas, and allow for new discoveries and more room for DM's to fit in their own areas and creations.
* There were so many important and powerful NPCs in the world, especially protagonists, that it overshadowed adventurers. The revamp gives players more room to stand out on their merits.
* The setting, themes, and stories were so well established, that it it threatened to tie the hands of the DM in order to make his stories fit in with the established canon.
* The present Realms were so well known that it made it far more inaccessible for a new DM of the Realms to really grasp and run decently. A DM can now still run the Realms successfully, without being a Realms scholar, and also doesn't have to be victim of a Realms-Lawyer.
They didn't throw out the whole Realms, they just shook it up enough and poked enough holes in it so that players and DMs could have more stake in it, more freedom to customize it and evolve it in ways that they see fit.
The specific ways it was done may be unique to the Realms, but this seems to be a guiding philosophy in 4E. It's a game of points of light in the darkness, and with enough holes and freedom to really make the game your own.
This approach is one of the things I've strongly supported in 4E.
* The geography of the Realms were so well established and explored that there wasn't much new territory to explore for players. The changes opened up new areas, changed areas, and allow for new discoveries and more room for DM's to fit in their own areas and creations.
* There were so many important and powerful NPCs in the world, especially protagonists, that it overshadowed adventurers. The revamp gives players more room to stand out on their merits.
* The setting, themes, and stories were so well established, that it it threatened to tie the hands of the DM in order to make his stories fit in with the established canon.
* The present Realms were so well known that it made it far more inaccessible for a new DM of the Realms to really grasp and run decently. A DM can now still run the Realms successfully, without being a Realms scholar, and also doesn't have to be victim of a Realms-Lawyer.
They didn't throw out the whole Realms, they just shook it up enough and poked enough holes in it so that players and DMs could have more stake in it, more freedom to customize it and evolve it in ways that they see fit.
The specific ways it was done may be unique to the Realms, but this seems to be a guiding philosophy in 4E. It's a game of points of light in the darkness, and with enough holes and freedom to really make the game your own.
This approach is one of the things I've strongly supported in 4E.
Henry
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I do agree about the "powerful NPCs" part, but the other three I have to disagree with. I rather liked the idea of the Realms being "the setting gushing with lore" coupled with a setting like Eberron or Greyhawk being the "sparse info" setting. There's room for a setting so detailed you feel like you could walk into it and live there tomorrow; Unfortunately, all the fun minor stuff has been wiped away like mildew in the span of that 100 years, little things like "Lord Greatshout," or that bar where the three wizards melded from the teleport accident still exist, or What Mirt the Moneylender is up to these days, etc. Sure, you could just swap in some of the lore, and pretend it's current instead of ancient history, but it can in several places leave pretty big gaps if you've already described this stuff to your players before.
For me, the fun of the realms was fitting in the PCs into that vibrant setting with all the minor crap going on, rather than figuring out how to involve the PCs as the biggest players on the block. Such a thing is a hallmark of Eberron, but not of Faerun in my mind. So, while I liked the whole "marginalizing the Seven Sisters and Crew" bit, washing away all the tiny lore along with it was something that bugged me.
Well that's fine, if that's your preference. My point is that the revamp allows for DM's that aren't as knowledgeable about the Realms (like myself) to have a chance of pulling off a decent Realms game without "ruining it" for the players.
A DM, like yourself, who is knowledgeable and comfortable with the Realms, and actually like the way it used to be, can just as easily ignore the settings changes and continue to play with everything still around the way it was and only retconning spell mechanics. Given how easy NPCs are to create now, this isn't a difficult task. Especially since you really only need to stat out the characters when the stats actually matter.
Of course, this makes the 4E Realms books far less useful to someone like yourself, and it won't be as a painless transition, but there's nothing wrong with ignoring the changes (or using some of it, but not adopting the parts you don't like).
It's interesting that World of Warcraft is having a "RSE".
The expnasion Cataclysm is, just like the Spellplague, fundamentally changing the landscape of Azeroth yet it seems like many of Blizzard's fans agree that it was needed or even long over due.
And WoW doesn't even have half the content as the Realms.
The expnasion Cataclysm is, just like the Spellplague, fundamentally changing the landscape of Azeroth yet it seems like many of Blizzard's fans agree that it was needed or even long over due.
And WoW doesn't even have half the content as the Realms.
Agreed. Unfortunately, my reaction was the same as the remodeled FRs: Meh. How original.
The Lich King expansion seemed like all kinds of cool. This one seems all kinds of "we need to keep milking the cow but we ran out of ideas and landmasses".
YMMV.
This goes doubly true for something far more important than DMs:
Novel writers.
There was so much lore, and every corner all ready developed, that it was a pain in the butt for the novel writers (especially new novel writers) to find anything to write about, or to begin writing and discover that they were conflicting with established lore. All that had come before had written them into a corner as far as what they could CREATE.
And you couldn't just hire a Realms Lore-master to write novels, because just knowing all the Lore of the realms does not make one a good novel writer.
Novels are the Forgotten Realms flagship, so they had to accommodate the novel writers, to keep the line going.
This is very true as well. However, perhaps if the majority of the novels hadn't been on such large/epic/high-fantasy scale, authors would have had more room to manuever without stepping on each others' toes. Spellplague (& now WoW's Cataclysm) just seems like a bad crossover event for a comic book line.
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