The New Forgotten Realms - (About) A Year Later

[Majoru Oakheart]

but thats what it did and thats exactly what WoTC wanted really. They made the conscious decision to nerf the setting in order to attract new players to it without worrying about the old ones. They hoped the old gang would stay because it had the FR stamp on it

That's not really true. I consider myself a....FR appreciator. I wouldn't call myself a FAN per se. I played my first D&D game in FR, and my first group that I was a member of for a couple of years played mostly in FR. I read a good 15-20 FR novels. I've read through most of the 3e FRCS and the 4e FRCS. I tried to read through the History of the Realms.

However, I don't know that much about the gritty details of the Realms. I don't know anything about a bunch of countries in the Realms because our games never took place there and the novels I read didn't either.

I don't know who rules almost any of the countries. I'd have to look it up if asked. I know where Waterdeep is, where Neverwinter is...but beyond that, I'm unlikely to recognize the name of any other city.

I like the new Realms. Because to me, nothing really changed. Waterdeep is still that big city where adventurers gather. There is still an Undermountain beneath it. Myth Drannor still exists. There is still an Elminster, still a Drizzt. All the things I think of when I think of the Realms are still there.

But, I suppose if I used to read everything on the Realms, I might be a little annoyed that Chessentia is mostly Akanul now. Maybe a little. But then again, when I look at a campaign setting my only thought is "How easily is this used in an adventure?". I like Akanul and its flavor. I'm probably biased in that I'm the Point of Contact for the Akanul region in LFR. But after we were assigned this region, I thought "How can be make this region fun and interesting? What makes this region special? What adventuring possibilities are there?" And there are lots.

What I'm saying is that I'd like to think I was an appreciator of the Realms before, and I was not alienated by the changes. I can only expect that the people who were alienated took their Realms a little TOO seriously.

 

[Primal]

but thats what it did and thats exactly what WoTC wanted really. They made the conscious decision to nerf the setting in order to attract new players to it without worrying about the old ones. They hoped the old gang would stay because it had the FR stamp on it

Exactly; they decided to get rid of the very aspects that appealed to the existing fan base, because they thought making FR an "entry-level" setting that is more strongly tied to the core rules *might* draw in more customers (including those had been very vocal about what they disliked in the setting). They even included FR-exclusive classes and races (swordmage, drow and genasi) to boost the sales. It was an experiment, and likely they saw that they had nothing to lose in the gamble... FR sales were probably decreasing and none of the staffers had strong emotional ties to FR.

I don't think that's the main reason, though; since the novels sell more than game books, getting rid of the "burden of lore" would help new authors. Also, apart from a few DDI articles, if the novels are the only continuous source of lore on the New Realms, it would probably boost the sales even more.

Anyway, that's how I see it; not malice, just cold, hard business.

 

[Primal]

That's not really true. I consider myself a....FR appreciator. I wouldn't call myself a FAN per se. I played my first D&D game in FR, and my first group that I was a member of for a couple of years played mostly in FR. I read a good 15-20 FR novels. I've read through most of the 3e FRCS and the 4e FRCS. I tried to read through the History of the Realms.

However, I don't know that much about the gritty details of the Realms. I don't know anything about a bunch of countries in the Realms because our games never took place there and the novels I read didn't either.

I don't know who rules almost any of the countries. I'd have to look it up if asked. I know where Waterdeep is, where Neverwinter is...but beyond that, I'm unlikely to recognize the name of any other city.

I like the new Realms. Because to me, nothing really changed. Waterdeep is still that big city where adventurers gather. There is still an Undermountain beneath it. Myth Drannor still exists. There is still an Elminster, still a Drizzt. All the things I think of when I think of the Realms are still there.

But, I suppose if I used to read everything on the Realms, I might be a little annoyed that Chessentia is mostly Akanul now. Maybe a little. But then again, when I look at a campaign setting my only thought is "How easily is this used in an adventure?". I like Akanul and its flavor. I'm probably biased in that I'm the Point of Contact for the Akanul region in LFR. But after we were assigned this region, I thought "How can be make this region fun and interesting? What makes this region special? What adventuring possibilities are there?" And there are lots.

What I'm saying is that I'd like to think I was an appreciator of the Realms before, and I was not alienated by the changes. I can only expect that the people who were alienated took their Realms a little TOO seriously.

Well, as I already said, the depth and amount of lore was likely the main "lure" for the Realms; most of the FR fans I know prefer a detailed setting and consistency over generic guidelines and adventure ideas. For them, every detail omitted or removed means extra work, starting with the "patching" of some inconsistencies regarding the events of the Spellplague. None of the FR fans I personally know in RL are playing in the 4E Realms. However, I'm not denying that for casual DMs and players the Spellplague probably feels liberating.

I know some lore in my 2E/3E books is still viable, but almost every NPC mentioned in them is dead and a lot of the locations were probably altered or destroyed by the Spellplague -- for example, how many towns and villages detailed in 'Volo's Guide to the North' and 'Volo's Guide to the Sword Coast' are still there? Can I use the city map from FR Adventures for Baldur's Gate "as is", or has there been changes? Which other towns and cities have altered layouts? And so on. I might be able to use some lore from my books, but in many cases I would have to completely rewrite local NPCs, locations and events and redraw the maps. We love details in my group, so unless I wanted to improvise a lot of stuff on the fly, I'd really need to spend a few evenings writing it all down.

(BTW, the whole idea that there are no written sources detailing the events and history after the Spellplague is silly; we have written descriptions about every major catastrophe to hit mankind in the last two thousand years, including the Plague -- there have always been people who catalogue events, even at the risk of their own life).

 

[Bluenose]

Well, as I already said, the depth and amount of lore was likely the main "lure" for the Realms; most of the FR fans I know prefer a detailed setting and consistency over generic guidelines and adventure ideas. For them, every detail omitted or removed means extra work, starting with the "patching" of some inconsistencies regarding the events of the Spellplague. None of the FR fans I personally know in RL are playing in the 4E Realms. However, I'm not denying that for casual DMs and players the Spellplague probably feels liberating.

That's at least as much a result of natural selection. People who disliked vast amounts of, (let's be mean and call it trivia rather than detail), stopped playing the setting or at least stopped buying more sourcebooks. and if we're going to talk about consistency, RSE events have a very long tradition. Why expect them to stop?

I know some lore in my 2E/3E books is still viable, but almost every NPC mentioned in them is dead and a lot of the locations were probably altered or destroyed by the Spellplague -- for example, how many towns and villages detailed in 'Volo's Guide to the North' and 'Volo's Guide to the Sword Coast' are still there? Can I use the city map from FR Adventures for Baldur's Gate "as is", or has there been changes? Which other towns and cities have altered layouts? And so on. I might be able to use some lore from my books, but in many cases I would have to completely rewrite local NPCs, locations and events and redraw the maps. We love details in my group, so unless I wanted to improvise a lot of stuff on the fly, I'd really need to spend a few evenings writing it all down.

With medieval technology levels it's highly unlikely that the major buildings in a city have changed much even in function. They're built for a purpose and adapting them is a problem even when there's plenty of wealth around. Street plans are also likely to be very similar, based on the way towns have developed in RL history. As for villages, they don't get dumped on the map at random, or at least they shouldn't have been. If there's a sensible reason for a village or town to exist in a particular position, there are almost certainly still people living there. Maybe more, maybe less, but that happens even on shorter time scales.

(BTW, the whole idea that there are no written sources detailing the events and history after the Spellplague is silly; we have written descriptions about every major catastrophe to hit mankind in the last two thousand years, including the Plague -- there have always been people who catalogue events, even at the risk of their own life).

Really. [sarcasm]So you can explain the decline of the Classical Maya civilisation, the rise and fall of the Pallavas and Pandyas in India, the end of the Anasazi culture? Should be several prize-winning histories in it for you.[/sarcasm]

 

[Imban]

But then again, when I look at a campaign setting my only thought is "How easily is this used in an adventure?"

This is actually my biggest problem with the 4e FR Campaign Guide. It seemed absolutely devoted to that idea, to the point where I think maybe two countries even acknowledged the idea that other countries existed.

In other words, they swung from describing a world to describing a bunch of nations which you could drop into any game, complete with crappy little maps cropped to not show anything but the country in question.

While "a bunch of nations you could drop into any game" is a fine product idea, it felt like an awful lame thing to replace a pre-existing campaign setting with.

 

[Glyfair]

Well, as I already said, the depth and amount of lore was likely the main "lure" for the Realms;...

I disagree. I think the main lure was the ubiquity of the setting. That an it's pretty standard fantasy setting. While some are attracted to "different" setting, I think that more are put off by them. "Odd" settings tend not to become super popular.

 

[Primal]

That's at least as much a result of natural selection. People who disliked vast amounts of, (let's be mean and call it trivia rather than detail), stopped playing the setting or at least stopped buying more sourcebooks. and if we're going to talk about consistency, RSE events have a very long tradition. Why expect them to stop?

I never cared much for RSEs, especially at the rate they were introduced to increase the novel sales. Most of them didn't happen in my campaigns, although some (such as the 'Rage of Dragons') may yet take place in the future. BTW, RSEs didn't happen often until 3E rolled out; ToT is the only one I can think of during the AD&D era.

What are you referring by "natural selection"? Decreased sales? I'm not even sure if they *had* decreased dramatically; that was just an assumption on my part (GHotR, at least, did very well).

With medieval technology levels it's highly unlikely that the major buildings in a city have changed much even in function. They're built for a purpose and adapting them is a problem even when there's plenty of wealth around. Street plans are also likely to be very similar, based on the way towns have developed in RL history. As for villages, they don't get dumped on the map at random, or at least they shouldn't have been. If there's a sensible reason for a village or town to exist in a particular position, there are almost certainly still people living there. Maybe more, maybe less, but that happens even on shorter time scales.

Well, first of all, I don't think FR is a purely medieval setting; FR has gunpowder, magic and more advanced technology than anything in the middle ages, so I'd call it "pseudo-medieval" if anything. Ed Greenwood himself has said that one of his own possible futures for the Realms was that in a hundred years or so the setting would roll "fully" into Renaissance (resulting in a technologically, magically and culturally different FR).

As for the changes... if I remember correctly, quite a many of the smaller settlements were wiped out by the rampaging Spellplague, and only areas with powerful magical protections remained (mostly) untouched. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I recall that a great many new settlements were founded in the Western Heartlands and the North. Some cities, like Waterdeep and Baldur's Gate (both of which were mostly untouched, BTW), still saw radical changes in the architecture and layout.

Really. [sarcasm]So you can explain the decline of the Classical Maya civilisation, the rise and fall of the Pallavas and Pandyas in India, the end of the Anasazi culture? Should be several prize-winning histories in it for you.[/sarcasm]

Alright, all the events was hyperbole, but the fact remains that we have written descriptions of many major events from the last two thousand years, and much more was lost when civilizations fell (or libraries were burned/sacked). In FR, literacy is much, much more common than it was in medieval times and there are deities, priesthoods and organizations dedicated to keeping accurate records and histories, so I have to wonder why nobody would have bothered to write about events of the "hundred year gap".

 

[Primal]

I disagree. I think the main lure was the ubiquity of the setting. That an it's pretty standard fantasy setting. While some are attracted to "different" setting, I think that more are put off by them. "Odd" settings tend not to become super popular.

I'd personally define Dark Sun and Eberron both as "odd" fantasy worlds (the latter for its steampunk-ish elements), and I always thought Greyhawk was more "generic" than FR as a fantasy setting. What do you mean by "ubiquity"?

 

[Hussar]

Exactly; they decided to get rid of the very aspects that appealed to the existing fan base, because they thought making FR an "entry-level" setting that is more strongly tied to the core rules *might* draw in more customers (including those had been very vocal about what they disliked in the setting). They even included FR-exclusive classes and races (swordmage, drow and genasi) to boost the sales. It was an experiment, and likely they saw that they had nothing to lose in the gamble... FR sales were probably decreasing and none of the staffers had strong emotional ties to FR.

I don't think that's the main reason, though; since the novels sell more than game books, getting rid of the "burden of lore" would help new authors. Also, apart from a few DDI articles, if the novels are the only continuous source of lore on the New Realms, it would probably boost the sales even more.

Anyway, that's how I see it; not malice, just cold, hard business.

I don't know if you realize just how condescending this sounds. You're effectively saying that the only real fans of the setting are people who deeply immerse themselves in the vast reams of setting material and everyone else doesn't matter.

That the changes they made weren't done for any "real" reasons, just another money grab. That the idea of having massive fluff bloat wasn't off putting to the continually shrinking population of gamers that would even consider trying to get into the Realms.

See, you've said that it's enough to have read the campaign setting guide.

So, you're saying that I could run a campaign in the Shining South (to pick an area) having only read the SS campaign guide and the FRPG? That would be sufficient to qualify me to run a campaign in FR?

Or, if I wanted to run a Waterdeep campaign, the FRCS would be sufficient?

If that's true, then we are in complete agreement. However, if I need to have any more books than one, maybe two, in order to be sufficiently qualified to run a game in FR, then FR needed to be pruned WAY WAY back.

Like I said, I should not need to read close to a thousand pages (which is what I meant by hundreds of pages) before I even begin to start crafting adventures in that setting.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Maybe I'm crazy but didn't a conversation very similiar to this one just take place and got pretty heated and everyone came away with the exact same opinions they had before?