I never bought into the whole 'super NPCs' took over my realms campaigns so the PCs couldnt be the heroes BS. FR ninjas don't come in and make you use them or add them to your FR campaign. Same goes with the canon. Its there for those who want it.
I never bought into the whole 'super NPCs' took over my realms campaigns so the PCs couldn't be the heroes BS. FR ninjas don't come in and make you use them or add them to your FR campaign. Same goes with the canon. Its there for those who want it.
This is one of the reasons, though, that I don't like published settings, and don't use them. They always come part and parcel with movers and shakers, and I prefer my players to have a monopoly on that.I never bought into the whole 'super NPCs' took over my realms campaigns so the PCs couldnt be the heroes BS. FR ninjas don't come in and make you use them or add them to your FR campaign. Same goes with the canon. Its there for those who want it.
This is one of the reasons, though, that I don't like published settings, and don't use them. They always come part and parcel with movers and shakers, and I prefer my players to have a monopoly on that.
That being said, I am fully cognizant of the importance or published settings to other DM's, and I've said before that I am in the minority in this, and thus not to be catered to.
But yeah, setting heroes suck. I will never use FR because the first player that says he's looking for Drizz't is getting an ogre spear in the face.
Drizzt who?
This is more or less what Rich Baker said in an interview at Rogue Warden shortly after he was laid off.The funny thing about people's reactions to the 4E Realms is that at the time they decided to do it... I think the folks at WotC really seemed to think that what they chose to do was doing all the players a favor. Something that many of them actually were clamoring for. At least, as far as I remember of the time.
...
So the 100 year jump I think they genuinely thought was going to be a good one. Not only did it clear the table so-to-speak for all players to not have decades of history to worry about and thus they could make their own histories... not only did it remove or lessen the influence of all the super NPCs and thus the player's PCs could have more of an impact... but it also gave a reason to explain away the stuff 4E was bringing into the game without invalidating or retconning any of the Realms that had occurred before.
...
But the downside of course being that players of the 3.5 timeline would feel like their portal to current Realms history was being cut off, plus feeling like WotC was asking them to discontinue their own campaigns to make the 100 year jump, especially if they were going to transition to playing 4E.
RW: What do you feel is your greatest setback as an RPG professional?
RB: I’d say, 4th Edition Forgotten Realms. It’s clear in retrospect that 4th Edition D&D created a very damaging split in the D&D audience, and we compounded that mistake by “taking away” the existing Realms in the process of providing a new Realms for the 4e fans to play. We would have been better off to produce a clean, comprehensive “current era” 4e, or even restarting the setting. I wish I could tell you that it wasn’t my idea, or that I resisted the change, but that wouldn’t be entirely true; while I had my reservations, I was persuaded that a reset was necessary and made plenty of my own contributions to the new Realms. (Most of my work was in the background and planning—I actually did very little writing in the 4e FR Campaign Setting or Player’s Guide to Faerun.)
This is more or less what Rich Baker said in an interview at Rogue Warden shortly after he was laid off.
Rich Baker said:I’d say, 4th Edition Forgotten Realms. It’s clear in retrospect that 4th Edition D&D created a very damaging split in the D&D audience, and we compounded that mistake by “taking away” the existing Realms in the process of providing a new Realms for the 4e fans to play. We would have been better off to produce a clean, comprehensive “current era” 4e, or even restarting the setting. I wish I could tell you that it wasn’t my idea, or that I resisted the change, but that wouldn’t be entirely true; while I had my reservations, I was persuaded that a reset was necessary and made plenty of my own contributions to the new Realms. (Most of my work was in the background and planning—I actually did very little writing in the 4e FR Campaign Setting or Player’s Guide to Faerun.)
With a fairly narrow focus, and a small font like 3E's FRCS, we could get a 320-page book which I think would really rock and appeal to Old School and younger/newer gamers as well.