The New Forgotten Realms - (About) A Year Later

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

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?

I am not sure it got heated yet. But it might be a reimagination with different actors, improved CGI and better storytelling.

Spoiler

Or should that be with different players, improved mechanics and better roleplaying?

 

[Bluenose]

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).

Natural selection refers to the way a significant number of FR fans were turned away from the setting by the increasing amount of material. Consider that there have been a number of threads where people have said they've returned to FR after liking the original grey box but have subsequently lost interest (whether because of RSEs, too much detail, emphasis on aspects they disliked). Many of them have said part of their reason for returning is their liking for that there's less information given and they feel freer to create their own campaigns knowing there's not going to be a sourcebook along to detail things in a different way to what they have done.

Anecdotally I can point out an example of the biggest FR fan in my gaming group. He adored the original grey box, began grumbling some time in 2nd edition about excessive amounts of irrelevant information, and in 3rd edition began running games set in areas where there was only a limited amount of information available. He is very happy to have a setting which won't be expanded further, since he's sure that anything he develops for a region won't be invalidated by a later sourcebook.

On the subject of RSEs, I don't think I agree that they're a product of 3rd edition. The Tuigan horde, the discovery of Maztica, the Eighth Seros War, the end of Tethyr's civil war, and the establishment of the Silver Marches are all significant events that could qualify as RSEs. Certainly the Elven Crusade and re-establishment of Myth Drannor isn't any more significant than most of these.

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.

Pre-industrial might be a better term than medieval, but the point is still valid. There are solid geographical reasons why settlements exist in particular places which don't change much over time. Over 90% of settlements that appear in the Domesday Book still exist in present day England over 900 years later. Street plans of London don't suggest any major changes were caused by the Great Fire of London, with roads still following almost identical courses and buildings usually being replaced by similar sorts of buildings (although the actual building may have been destroyed, unless the owners were dead they still owned the land and built in the same place.

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".

I assume people did. Yet the most valuable information would be diaries and such, rather than things people wrote up thirty years later with the benefit of hindsight. These are just the sort of material that people won't consider vital enough to carry with them when fleeing badly affected areas, and outside these areas the information they contain will be affected by hearsay evidence. Add to that the dislocation of the catastrophe which would lead to reduced literacy levels in it's aftermath, and there are plausible reasons why information would be limited and inaccurate.

Which still doesn't mean that it's not a silly assumption that no-one has written a "History of the SpellPalgue" book with as much information as they have. Just that it's not necessarily something people need much.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Natural selection refers to the way a significant number of FR fans were turned away from the setting by the increasing amount of material. Consider that there have been a number of threads where people have said they've returned to FR after liking the original grey box but have subsequently lost interest (whether because of RSEs, too much detail, emphasis on aspects they disliked). Many of them have said part of their reason for returning is their liking for that there's less information given and they feel freer to create their own campaigns knowing there's not going to be a sourcebook along to detail things in a different way to what they have done.

Anecdotally I can point out an example of the biggest FR fan in my gaming group. He adored the original grey box, began grumbling some time in 2nd edition about excessive amounts of irrelevant information, and in 3rd edition began running games set in areas where there was only a limited amount of information available. He is very happy to have a setting which won't be expanded further, since he's sure that anything he develops for a region won't be invalidated by a later sourcebook.

On the subject of RSEs, I don't think I agree that they're a product of 3rd edition. The Tuigan horde, the discovery of Maztica, the Eighth Seros War, the end of Tethyr's civil war, and the establishment of the Silver Marches are all significant events that could qualify as RSEs. Certainly the Elven Crusade and re-establishment of Myth Drannor isn't any more significant than most of these.



Pre-industrial might be a better term than medieval, but the point is still valid. There are solid geographical reasons why settlements exist in particular places which don't change much over time. Over 90% of settlements that appear in the Domesday Book still exist in present day England over 900 years later. Street plans of London don't suggest any major changes were caused by the Great Fire of London, with roads still following almost identical courses and buildings usually being replaced by similar sorts of buildings (although the actual building may have been destroyed, unless the owners were dead they still owned the land and built in the same place.



I assume people did. Yet the most valuable information would be diaries and such, rather than things people wrote up thirty years later with the benefit of hindsight. These are just the sort of material that people won't consider vital enough to carry with them when fleeing badly affected areas, and outside these areas the information they contain will be affected by hearsay evidence. Add to that the dislocation of the catastrophe which would lead to reduced literacy levels in it's aftermath, and there are plausible reasons why information would be limited and inaccurate.

Which still doesn't mean that it's not a silly assumption that no-one has written a "History of the SpellPalgue" book with as much information as they have. Just that it's not necessarily something people need much.

Personally I think Forgotten Realms - as a game setting, might still have been served best with a "reimagination" and return to the beginning. I don't think it would have been possible, though. The novels are very important for the FR, and it seems the ongoing storyline is not hurting them in the slightest.

But maybe I am wrong. I am not sure if FR fans that dislike the Spellplague and the return of Abeir could be pleased with a reboot. I think I personally would have enjoyed going back to the roots, because I wasn't there the first time, and I could enjoy the setting from a fresh position.

I know, though, that without this RSE, I probably wouldn't have picked up the FR books - except maybe the players guide...

 

[Primal]

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.

No, that's not what I'm saying; I'm saying that most of the "old guard" *I* know (online and in RL) *loved* the depth of lore, and for them this was the "lure" of the setting. Yeah, anecdotal and all that, but that's all we have, right?

The way I see it, these changes they made were just about cold, hard business; they didn't think about their existing fans (if they also liked the setting, it would be a bonus, nothing more). It's not the same as 4E FR being a ruthless "money grab", though.

Why did the FR sales decline towards the end of the 3E era? Maybe they should have published more books the fans actually *wanted*, such as supplements for Western Heartlands, Cormyr, Sembia, Dalelands... *these* are the areas most DMs I know place their campaigns in -- not in Halruaa or Thay (or even Waterdeep). For example, Serpent Kingdoms, Silver Marches and City of Splendors are great books, but these are kind of limited in usability. Then there were some (failed) experiments (Mysteries of Moonsea) and not-so-stellar adventures (Sons of Gruumsh). And for these reasons, I think, is why many DMs stopped buying stuff. We *begged* Rich Baker (on the WoTC boards) for Cities of the Realms, Dungeons of the Realms and Cormyr/Dalelands/Sembia accessory, but no such luck. So, many DMs just gave up and didn't buy Dragons of Faerun or Unapproachable East or the last adventure trilogy, because they felt that WoTC didn't exactly cater to their wishes.

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.

Why would you run a 4E campaign without the FRCG? As I've said above, you can run a campaign without any books or knowledge of the setting, if the players in your group are okay with it. Maybe I (as a player) wouldn't enjoy it as much as the campaigns in my group, but I would probably try discussing my issues with you.

Note that your tone with "If I need to read more than hundreds of pages, FR needs to be pruned back" type of phrase is just as condescending as you claim mine was; it implies that your way is superior to

Let me repeat: Regardless of whether you want to run an Eberron/FR/Dragonlance/Greyhawk/Etcetera campaign and think that the campaign setting book is more than enough, you're more than "qualified" if everyone is okay with it. If someone has an issue, it's in my eyes no more different than, say, trying to force "combat fans" to play in an intrigue and roleplaying heavy campaign with very few combat encounters. Or forcing someone to play a space opera game even though he hates the genre. I don't personally like the steampunk-ish elements of Eberron, so I'd want to drop out of the group if that became suddenly our setting of choice and the DM would be adamant about it.

It's about preferences, and DMs should be flexible, too; I've cut down the number (and length) of descriptions whenever I've run games for players new to DM or if they seemed like they didn't like being bombarded with details. I *could* have kicked such players out the minute they said they feel "burdened" by information, but why would I want to do that? Likewise, I would expect the DM to be patient with me if I, as a player, kept asking about "minutae". Of course, if I was the only person in the group interested in minor details, I wouldn't likely play with them for long.

 

[ferratus]

We *begged* Rich Baker (on the WoTC boards) for Cities of the Realms, Dungeons of the Realms and Cormyr/Dalelands/Sembia accessory, but no such luck. So, many DMs just gave up and didn't buy Dragons of Faerun or Unapproachable East or the last adventure trilogy, because they felt that WoTC didn't exactly cater to their wishes.

Was this out of a desire to put their own stamp on the setting (by fleshing out less popular places), because the Dales, Heartlands and Cormyr had been covered in previous editions, or both?

For me, the Realms is Cormyr, the Dales, the Moonsea and the Ruins of Myth Drannor, and I don't really give a damn about the rest. So I know I kept waiting for books about those regions, and only got the Moonsea.

 

[SSquirrel]

Those areas have been done to death. Maybe they had enough people complain to them about the focus on a few areas and how they ignore the rest of a gigantic world. Most of the 2E material is still perfectly usable with a 3E era FR game and they already had products detailing those areas very well. It's all equally unneeded in a 4E game tho.

 

[Primal]

Was this out of a desire to put their own stamp on the setting (by fleshing out less popular places), because the Dales, Heartlands and Cormyr had been covered in previous editions, or both?

For me, the Realms is Cormyr, the Dales, the Moonsea and the Ruins of Myth Drannor, and I don't really give a damn about the rest. So I know I kept waiting for books about those regions, and only got the Moonsea.

I can't really say; reading between the lines (and this is my own interpretation) it does seem like some of the designers wanted to leave their own fingerprints all over the place. It may also be that the design team was unsure what to do with the more popular areas, and that is why they released regional books for more "exotic" areas. As you said, Cormyr, Dalelands et al. were already covered in 2E accessories, but still many DMs wished a 3E update on things -- after all, it had been a few years since the Volo's Guides had been published. Maybe RB had some insider knowledge of 4E even before the development began, and thus saw any regional development being counterintuitive to 4E design goals?

Anyway, I feel the design team really dropped the ball with the storyline, introducing a lot of weird RSEs (Return of the Archwizards, Rage of Dragons, the whole Shadowstorm events, etcetera) and clearly focusing on certain organizations and deities only (namely, the Shade and Shar). And they totally ignored the story potential in Xvim's ascension, the Manshoon Wars and other "seeds" the FR "Lorelords" had written.

What I *do* know is that before 4E came out, the designers publicly admitted none of the staffers had been running FR campaigns in years, which says a lot; they didn't have any emotional attachment to FR, and it was just "work". If we take a look at Eberron (especially which sort of books they put out at the same time while replying to FR fans that "This sort of books wouldn't sell") it's a whole different story; it was pretty evident to me that the staffers liked Eberron a lot, and this is even more evident if we compare the FR and Eberron 4E books with each other.

For FR, it was just plain work and hard business; for Eberron, it was what they thought would be best for the setting and its fans (being fans themselves). At least that's how I see it.

 

[Primal]

Those areas have been done to death. Maybe they had enough people complain to them about the focus on a few areas and how they ignore the rest of a gigantic world. Most of the 2E material is still perfectly usable with a 3E era FR game and they already had products detailing those areas very well. It's all equally unneeded in a 4E game tho.

I disagree; what I hoped was an update of things and how the storyline events (in novels) had impacted those areas -- maybe see a few new faces and locations covered, certain regional spells and items updated to 3E and regional/local PrCs similar to those in Shining South, City of Splendors, Unapproachable East and Silver Marches.

They *had* covered Shining South, too, in its own 2E supplement.

BTW, if I ran a 4E FR campaign, I'd need to rewrite a *LOT* of stuff to appease my players; not everyone is curious about small details, but for DMs whose players *do*, in my opinion the 4E FR is just not worth it.

 

[ferratus]

What I *do* know is that before 4E came out, the designers publicly admitted none of the staffers had been running FR campaigns in years, which says a lot; they didn't have any emotional attachment to FR, and it was just "work". If we take a look at Eberron (especially which sort of books they put out at the same time while replying to FR fans that "This sort of books wouldn't sell") it's a whole different story; it was pretty evident to me that the staffers liked Eberron a lot, and this is even more evident if we compare the FR and Eberron 4E books with each other.

For FR, it was just plain work and hard business; for Eberron, it was what they thought would be best for the setting and its fans (being fans themselves). At least that's how I see it.

If this is true, then that's good news for Dark Sun, because the design team seems to have a real affection for that setting that was absent from FR. It also explains why the parallels between the 5th Age of DL and 4e FR are so prevalent. DL 5th Age generally had a lot of people that felt the basic flavour and story of the setting needed to be changed drastically too.

 

[SSquirrel]

It also explains why the parallels between the 5th Age of DL and 4e FR are so prevalent. DL 5th Age generally had a lot of people that felt the basic flavour and story of the setting needed to be changed drastically too.

You mean the authors of the setting? The 5th Age stuff all comes about as a direct result of the Dragons of Summer Flame book. Still have no idea why they tried switching to the SAGA card system, but not all experiments work. They probably were trying to accomplish something that did less to take the player out of the story, remember that Vampire and the rest of the Storyteller system from White Wolf was trouncing D&D at that point.

EDIT:Yes I know Weis and Hickman didn't write the game books, but they did supply all the initial changes to the setting in their novel.