D&D 5E 5th edition Forgotten Realms: Why can't you just ignore the lore?

[Staffan]

In many ways, there are two Forgotten Realms (Realmses?).

The first, which I fairly like, is the Realms of the game material - particularly AD&D era stuff. This is the Realms that gives you details on particular inns, of rumors of haunted ruins protected by powerful magic, of describing that a particular city is famous for its distinct architecture. This is the Realms that gives you almost 40 pages of detail on a single Dale in the core boxed set (although the adventure that took up the other 50 pages wasn't so hot).

The second, which I don't care at all for, is the Realms of the novels. This is the Realms where the gods are cast out of the heavens because of the theft of the Tablets of Fate. This is the Realms that shatters the most prominent Evil City due to a god's failed plan. This is the Realms that resolves the Tethyrian civil war by revealing that Elminster's scribe is the long-lost heir to the throne. This is the Realms I care nothing for.

I don't really have any problems playing in the first Realms and doing my best to ignore the second.

 

[Derren]

Here is the post that you replied to:

How interesting that you choose to cut out the relevant part

In my mind it became a port trading town.

Players need a boat? Ok, this town spontaneously became a trading town with lots of ships in it.

 

[Hussar]

While Sailormoon has been a bit overly insistent in some recent threads, I think what was said earlier in this thread is a perfectly reasonable take when it comes to how a given RPG setting IP is handled by designers and developers when publishing a product versus how individual DMs at home handle it.

By all means, please tweak, twist, mangle, and make your own of a given setting within your home game - that's part of what makes it fun and personalized.

But it's important for the cohesion and continued success of setting IP that those people working on it professionally and being paid for that to be aware of the material at a high level, to retain continuity and cohesion as much as possible (unless you're excising something that was itself a retcon or gaff in a prior product), and to act as a responsible caretaker for the property in question. It's just part of being professional and doing a job at a high level. It's important that you keep continuity to make sure that players are starting off with the same basic assumptions regarding a setting, and then applying whatever changes or house rules in their own campaigns. This isn't including as necessarily bad if you evolve a campaign in a radical direction and move it forward thusly in print - that will always be a matter of taste as to it being successful or not - but doing that doesn't imply breaking continuity when doing so, and if you do break continuity in grand fashion when doing that, something went seriously wrong.

Where would you disagree on that and why? I'm curious.

Yes, I would disagree with this.

You presume that the original canon is worth retaining simply because it came first. IOW, just because something is canon doesn't make it a good idea and, if we follow what you say here, then any mistakes in the past can never be rectified - they become entrenched and thus, immune to criticism.

Canon for canon's sake is never a good thing. And, breaking continuity "in a grand fashion" will always be a matter of taste. For some people, tiefling backgrounds will be a huge deal. For others, it's entirely unimportant.

 

[Sailor Moon]

Yes, I would disagree with this.

You presume that the original canon is worth retaining simply because it came first. IOW, just because something is canon doesn't make it a good idea and, if we follow what you say here, then any mistakes in the past can never be rectified - they become entrenched and thus, immune to criticism.

Canon for canon's sake is never a good thing. And, breaking continuity "in a grand fashion" will always be a matter of taste. For some people, tiefling backgrounds will be a huge deal. For others, it's entirely unimportant.

Canon is there for two reasons.

1: The novels.

2: Because the Realms is a living setting and it's what the majority of it's fans who shell out the money want.

 

[Hussar]

How interesting that you choose to cut out the relevant part


Players need a boat? Ok, this town spontaneously became a trading town with lots of ships in it.

Which is absolutely fantastic.

Look, they want to go from A to B. Exploring Candlekeep was never the point of the adventure. So, if we follow your advice, they go to Candlekeep (or learn about it elsewhere), can't get a boat and move on. Whoopee. Hey, look at the sights while we play our Tour De Realms game and the DM gets to info dump yet another bit of Realmslore on the players that has absolutely nothing to do with what the players want to do. Gee, can I have more of that?

Instead, the DM realises, rightly in my mind, that the players WANT TO GO TO WATERDEEP, and gets them there in the most expeditious manner possible.

That's someone well on their way to being a great DM.
[MENTION=30170]sailo[/MENTION]rMoon - you do realise that if you go back to the old 1e and early 2e Realms material, there's HUGE swaths of it left undetailed? That that was one of the big draws for FR back then - unlike Greyhawk which had pretty much every square mile of real estate detailed as being under the command or lordship of someone or other, you had this huge setting with all sorts of blank spots to fill in? Even the stuff that was filled in was usually done through an unreliable narrator (like Volo) so, it all had to be taken with a large grain of salt anyway.

Just because you want a setting that is 100% filled in by the publishers does not mean that everyone wants the same thing.

 

[Hussar]

Canon is there for two reasons.

1: The novels.

2: Because the Realms is a living setting and it's what the majority of it's fans who shell out the money want.

The majority of fans? Really? You know that for a fact? Wow, that's impressive that you know what all these people want and aren't just projecting your personal preferences on everyone else.

I think it would be better to say it's what you want and how you would prefer the Realms.

But, again, trying to reserve the Realms for hard core fans is not doing anyone any good. It's probably a thousand times better to break minor bits of canon (which is what HotDQ did) and attract new fans than turn off any new fans in order to service an ever shrinking core of hard core fans. Considering how popular these modules seem to be, I can't think of this as anything but a win for Realms fans.

 

[billd91]

Players need a boat? Ok, this town spontaneously became a trading town with lots of ships in it.

If he's not using the setting canonically, there's nothing wrong with that either. Without knowing the specific lore of the place and using it just as a dot on the map with details to be filled in later - that's a long standing tradition in gaming. If I hadn't known something specific about Candlekeep (that it sits on bluffs overlooking the sea but with no direct access), I wouldn't have seen a problem with using it as a generic coastal town either.

 

[Sailor Moon]

The majority of fans? Really? You know that for a fact? Wow, that's impressive that you know what all these people want and aren't just projecting your personal preferences on everyone else.

I think it would be better to say it's what you want and how you would prefer the Realms.

But, again, trying to reserve the Realms for hard core fans is not doing anyone any good. It's probably a thousand times better to break minor bits of canon (which is what HotDQ did) and attract new fans than turn off any new fans in order to service an ever shrinking core of hard core fans. Considering how popular these modules seem to be, I can't think of this as anything but a win for Realms fans.

Actually I do.

All you have to do is take a look a WoTc backtracking on the last edition of the Realms and promising us the old Realms again. If the old crowd wasn't dishing out the most money then they wouldn't bother bringing back the old Realms.

 

[Parmandur]

Actually I do.



All you have to do is take a look a WoTc backtracking on the last edition of the Realms and promising us the old Realms again. If the old crowd wasn't dishing out the most money then they wouldn't bother bringing back the old Realms.

Well, that tells us they wanted to please the fans of the novels, so brought the books back to where the novel fans wanted them. The literature is where the $$$ is, not lore lawyering, I'd wager.

 

[Sailor Moon]

Well, that tells us they wanted to please the fans of the novels, so brought the books back to where the novel fans wanted them. The literature is where the $$$ is, not lore lawyering, I'd wager.

Has nothing to do with lawyering.

You should head on over to Candlekeep and educate yourself a bit.