I really don't see how you think that was mockery to suggest that you might be an alternate name for Celebrim. Also, the size of the forum is an irrelevant point - we've had individuals here with over ten different user names, posting as different people. Finally, it wasn't just that you two share points of agreement, as I noted previously.
Calling it cheap rhetorical baiting is itself cheap rhetorical baiting. Please stop engaging in it.
Except I posted prior to Celebrim disappearing. My points are different from Celebrim in other matters as well. I will drop this, but I hope that you would be able to see how disrespectful it is to make this accusation and how personally insulting it was to me.
The historical perception and the fantasy perception are not at all equivalent - the former is a matter of faith, the latter is a matter of fact. People might have believed that the gods walked among them and such, but that didn't make it any more true than believing that the sun revolved around the Earth made that true.
For the ancient world, the existence of the gods was a matter of fact and not faith. Do you deny the destruction of the storm? You have denied the wrath of Zeus and Poseidon. They saw the hand of the gods in everything and everyday life. They believed the gods walked among them. It does not make it true, but as far as their perceptions of the world, it was the same as that of Forgotten Realms. It is not about fact, but the worldview.
Even overlooking the relative nature of "exploring the full implications" of something, it does have believability and internal consistency, because we see the gods there as active players in the world, shaping it and where it goes instead of passively sitting back and being shaped by it.
So to did the gods of our historical past, or at least how people saw them.
You do realize that you just trailed off in the middle of a
It must have cut off. There was not much left in that thought though. Just that they do not behave as a pantheon.
I did read your restatement, though it doesn't seem as though you can say the same thing for mine. It's not dismissive to characterize such notations as bringing almost nothing to the setting, because they're not actually presenting us with very much at all - you're reading into them to find more myths and backstory, which is fine for you, but that's the DM writing more material into the world; it's not the material standing on its own.
And if all I wanted was the "notation" then you would have a point, but that is not as I have tried explaining to you before. I am merely telling you that you underestimate the value of this notation and its implications. Berna, as I am sure you looked up, did have myths to her name that did involve some of these meager "notations."
I'm less concerned with how much material is needed for good characterization than I am with having good characterization at all. I simply find that, given more opportunities over time, characters tend to develop more. It's fine if a character isn't well-developed right from the start, because later materials can step up and fill in the gaps. What I don't understand is why you seem so intent on disliking anything that doesn't do that right out of the gate.
Because one is all you need, and I do not want have to repeatedly buy additional sourcebooks and novels for the potential of small snippets of character development, though you may beg to differ with your MORE MORE MORE approach.
Pushing the burden of development onto the DM is not, however, the mark of good material. Good material presents the DM with developed characters to begin with, rather than failing to do so and leaving the DM to fill in the blanks.
And I do not believe that the deities are well-developed in FR. What development there is in FR feels lackluster and motivated not by character development. You may not like that freedom, but I as a DM do like that, as do others, and that does not make it bad material. It makes it material that is not to your preferences. If you do not want mystery, then FR is the setting for you. You need MORE MORE MORE. I prefer just enough to get my imagination going and to know how to use well. These different styles are all the more suggestive that Forgotten Realms is not for everyone.
"Sufficient" development - a nebulous term if ever there was one - is more than just noting a few familial relations. And FR's divine changes couldn't really be called "constantly shuffling the pantheonic deck." Beyond the Time of Troubles, there's only the Spellplague (which I certainly think was unnecessary) that constitutes any major pantheon-wide changes. The rest is happenstances for individual deities or small groups of individuals.
It is no more nebulous than anything else we are talking about. "Sufficient" is exactly that, "sufficient" enough for the use of the DMs and players. Is it any more nebulous than "good character development"? The Time of Troubles struck me as completely ridiculous and nonsensical from start to finish. I saw that as anything but good character development. The entire matter was almost a farse. And it also introduced the terrible character of Cyric. Then there was the Spellplague, which you yourself admit was unnecessary. There were three pantheons between four editions. How many times do you need to kill the goddess of magic? The Time of Troubles and the Spellplague effectively kicked many players and DMs in the balls and ran running.
As numerous others have pointed out, canon-lawyers have only as much power as the DM allows them to have. It's hardly fair to say that the novels actually detract from a setting because they arm these canon-lawyers at the expense of the DM.
I am not sure if that's hardly fair when other people in this thread have expressed their own issues involving exactly that problem. Furthermore, the quality of those novels does detract from the setting for me. I personally cannot stand the Forgotten Realms novels. They, along with the Dragonlance novels, represent some of the most pastiche, poorly-written, cliche, fantasy dribble created. And these qualities just ooze all over the setting.
I should also add that, from what I know of your position, I disagree with it and am attempting to explain why.
Nothing is stopping you from disagreeing with my preferences. But I am not sure what purpose it solves in this thread. I dislike Forgotten Realms as it does not live up to my preferences for a setting. What is there to disagree with? Do you disagree that it does not meet my personal preferences? Do you disagree that it has qualities that are not to my liking? What can you possibly say that will make me change my mind?
One's estimation is a personal thing, but I think they have been - if only from showing us various facets of the major deities again and again in various materials, we've seen them in various situations, showing various sides to their characters. How is that not development?
Again, it's not like the pantheon is undergoing major changes every year. Crucible: The Trial of Cyric the Mad did a great job showcasing deities like Cyric, Mystra, and Kelemvor changing without changing the composition of the pantheon.
Again, I find this somewhat debatable as to whether or not the deities were showcased well. And keep in mind that not all character development is good character development. Plus, in order to see this character development, one has to invest in the novels and additional sourcebooks, but the sourcebooks reference the novels. Where is that good character development from the get-go?
I agree; which is kind of why I wish you'd stop making the point that expansion materials constitute a threat to the DM.
The expansion material in the form of setting sorucebooks are not the problem though. I am telling you that I dislike the "World as Written," the canonical world. DMs can change bits and pieces here and there, but it does not change this canonical world. And when the canonical world changes every edition, then these complications are compounded and conflated by the constant reordering of the canon. But to me, the canonical setting is so lackluster to my tastes that I have no urge to rewrite it at all. It lacks any theme or setting unity. It is a generic mishmash, and its reception history as a setting supports this assertion. The Grey Box had plenty of potential as a setting, but I am still waiting for this potential, just like I am waiting for this good character development in the pantheon.
I wouldn't say it's served you very well. You've made it clear that you want fantasy deities to be just like historical pantheons from the real world. That's fine, but it goes against the grain for most campaign world's sense of internal consistency - historical pantheons evolved the way they did because they didn't actually exist to make active changes. Fantasy pantheons actually exist, in the context of the game world, and so of course will be different in their conduct.
Historical pantheons do not go against the grain of most campaign world's internal consistency. This is a bogus claim, because it presumes that most campaigns have deities that behave as they do in Forgotten Realms. The Sovereign Host exists (though it is more ambiguous), but they do not behave as they do in FR. Please take a look at Book of the Righteous so you can know exactly what I am talking about. The book is highly lauded as one of the best d20 products. And it very much proves that active, living deities that mirror historical pantheons does not go against the grain of most campaign worlds. It does not invalidate internal consistency or believability.
That's all well and good, but it's hardly merit for claiming that active deities - or at least those not done "right and well" - are poorly developed. Especially since you seem to be of the opinion that "right and well" consists of active deities being as inactive as possible.
You wanted to know my preferences? Now I have told you, but it not meant to merit anything against poorly developed active deities. Though I will say that activity takes many forms, and not all of them are overt as they are in FR.
I don't think the reduction of the pantheon in 4E necessarily had anything to do with the nature of the deities' development in 3E - they simply wanted to reduce the numbers for the sake of simplicity, true, but how they as characters had been portrayed didn't affect that that I can see.
From the FR Wiki: "Tyr was originally intended to be a greater god in the 4th edition pantheon of the Realms but was removed in mid-development and replaced with Torm, mainly due to fan reactions towards Tyr's slaying of Helm in The Grand History of the Realms."
Again, "they simply wanted to reduce the numbers for the sake of simplicity" is an acknowledgment of how the decision was motivated not by characterization but by notation and bookkeeping.
The term is largely used in the current vernacular as a colloquialism for those who are trying to smooth over something that is unpalatable, offensive, or gauche. None of which is the case here.
But not in my vernacular.
