D&D 5E Why FR Is "Hated"

[Caliban]

It's more like portraying Zeus as someone who totally respects women. It's probably a really good idea to do that. The alternative is really unpleasant. I can't recommend enough a tasteful interpretation that keeps everyone at the table comfortable.

You are making a lot of unfounded assumptions there.

Why do you think it's necessary to have a god show up and talk to your PC's in the first place?

Much less a god from a pantheon that doesn't even exist in the game?

And even if I did choose to use Zeus for some bizarre reason - he didn't respect men or women unless they were gods. He was an arrogant god who liked to seduce women.

Why would you change that? Makes great story fodder. You just need to express his innate sense of superiority over all mortals and maybe make an inappropriate offer to any females present. Or males. He was a Greek god, after all.

 

[Seramus]

You're both right and wrong. You're right that the NPCs wouldn't be just sitting there, but wrong that they would be a problem for the PCs. They would be engaging each other in their own plots that the PCs have nothing to do with, leaving the PCs as the only ones to handle their own world shaking stories and events.

Wholeheartedly agreed! That's usually the best approach in most circumstances.

 

[Seramus]

Why do you think it's necessary to have a god show up and talk to your PC's in the first place? Much less a god from a pantheon that doesn't even exist in the game?

What? We're talking about Pre-5E, and he's in Deities and Demigods, Page 101. Granted, that's a pretty specific example used to illustrate a character that has a canon depiction, but he totally exists in D&D.

And even if I did choose to use Zeus for some bizarre reason - he didn't respect men or women unless they were gods. He was an arrogant god who liked to seduce women.

Oh, he definitely is. But generally rape is not a comfortable subject at the gaming table. Nor something that should even need to be explored in your average D&D scenario. Same for Centaurs and many other unpleasant creatures, for example.

 

[Selvarin]

The game just simulates this aspect of gaining experience because it moves the game forward. Of course no one's going to set aside time in their lives to a game session where their character is serving in a military, working their way slowly up the ranks, or a cleric kneeling for hours in prayer, in meditation, until the next epiphany or moment of clarity allows them to grasp a higher level of prayer or spell in service to their deity.

Not disagreeing or being contrary, we're both on the same page. Just that the game only supports one general method of gaining experience, either through combat, attaining story goals, and other 'quicker' forms of character advancement. I wouldn't want to assume an NPC of X level got their solely through adventuring. I guess we're just making statements of fact...for an imaginary game. Heh.

 

[Caliban]

What? We're talking about Pre-5E, and he's in Deities and Demigods, Page 101. Granted, that's a pretty specific example used to illustrate a character that has a canon depiction, but he totally exists in D&D.

But not in the Forgotten Realms

Oh, he definitely is. But generally rape is not a comfortable subject at the gaming table. Nor something that should even need to be explored in your average D&D scenario. Same for Centaurs and many other unpleasant creatures, for example.

You just went from one extreme to another. "Gosh, if you can't portray him as TOTALLY RESPECTFUL of women, you HAVE TO portray him as a RAPIST".

I think we are done here. Bye.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Why would it apply to gods which are entirely different than human? Does it apply to rocks? Does it apply to a twig? Why ask why?



That they have class levels does not mean that they came into existence and gained them in the same way that morals do. That said, the ones that started as mortals and earned their way into becoming hero deities and demigods gained them through adventuring. The ones who started as mortals and were just granted godhood because X, such as Midnight, Cyric and Kelemvor did not gain all of them through adventuring. The ones born or created as gods just gained them from being gods. The same rules do not apply to gods as the ones that apply to mortal races.

Gods are NPCs though, and the fact that you accept they can gain levels by simply gaining power finishes the point I was trying to make.

You said : "I prefer to play in a rational world, not one where people just pop in at 16th or 27th level. They all adventured and gained experience though another similar method, or they would be first level."

However, that is not always the case. There are times when simply being gifted with enough power translates into character levels. So, a small child who gains a fragment of a gods power could be statted as a leveled character despite having never gone on a single adventure. And it is still rational, following the rules of the world, if not neccesarily the rules for normal mortals.

I think I missed that one. I don't know what you mean.

They were talking about an Eberron priestess who is "stuck" in her temple because she is a level 20 character in the temple, but only level 3 outside of it. That idea of someone whose level and power varies according to the location is not one I have thought to put in DnD before.

You are making a lot of unfounded assumptions there.

Why do you think it's necessary to have a god show up and talk to your PC's in the first place?

Much less a god from a pantheon that doesn't even exist in the game?

And even if I did choose to use Zeus for some bizarre reason - he didn't respect men or women unless they were gods. He was an arrogant god who liked to seduce women.

Why would you change that? Makes great story fodder. You just need to express his innate sense of superiority over all mortals and maybe make an inappropriate offer to any females present. Or males. He was a Greek god, after all.

I think you are misreading the spirit of the comment.
[MENTION=6812658]Seramus[/MENTION] is saying that depicting Elminster (who is a notorious busybody who gets into everyone's business) as someone who can't be bothered to get involved in your characters business is kind of like depicting Zeus as someone who respects women. It goes against the normal expectations of that character.

And you can claim "my fictional character my fictional rules for how he acts" and I'm sure we can find all sorts of fan fiction which claims the same thing and no one would agree it was an actual depiction of the original character.

 

[Selvarin]

And I disagree with your disagreement. In the best possible way! You see, I think you are both doing it wrong, and doing it right. Doing it wrong in the sense that FR really does have so many heroes that... they really are nearby. Your characters really are hearing about them all the time. They really are are that common and in many cases that powerful.

But you're also doing it right, because what's best for your players is to throw that crap out the window and run it your own way, and do what keeps the players happy. Which is the best kind of doing it right.

But this is mostly a Pre-5E issue.

The Forgotten Realms, novels, included have been around long enough that not only are Ed's favorite characters there but the ones dreamt of by other authors. So I get that. But I tend to take them as stories, mostly. And while some names may show up in gossip, really, what I imagine...is that in Ed's game or X's game their characters--the ones we've seen in print pre-5E numerous times--are being gossiped about. In your game or someone else's, however, it should be our character or yours. In a sense I just see it as an example of how it should be, like we're outside the looking glass, viewing it.

On a side note, I wonder how many gamers have the 'Regular Joe' characters who are slogging through the ranks but also have the nigh-epic (or truly epic) characters that they get to play on occasion when they need to really let things rip. Nine Lords' know I'd like to try my hand at playing Mordenkainen, or the Blackstaff.

 

[Caliban]

depicting Elminster (who is a notorious busybody who gets into everyone's business) as someone who can't be bothered to get involved in your characters business is kind of like depicting Zeus as someone who respects women. It goes against the normal expectations of that character.

Please show me where Elminster is depicted as a "notorious busybody who gets into everyone's business". (And not a Dragon Magazine article)

In an actual FR supplement or other official source.

Because I remember him as a guy who only gets involved in major events, and even then he usually sends other people.

 

[Maxperson]

Gods are NPCs though, and the fact that you accept they can gain levels by simply gaining power finishes the point I was trying to make.

You said : "I prefer to play in a rational world, not one where people just pop in at 16th or 27th level. They all adventured and gained experience though another similar method, or they would be first level."

However, that is not always the case. There are times when simply being gifted with enough power translates into character levels. So, a small child who gains a fragment of a gods power could be statted as a leveled character despite having never gone on a single adventure. And it is still rational, following the rules of the world, if not neccesarily the rules for normal mortals.

So you were intentionally ignoring context. You know very well that the context of this discussion limited NPCs to mortals such as Elminster and Dalamar.

They were talking about an Eberron priestess who is "stuck" in her temple because she is a level 20 character in the temple, but only level 3 outside of it. That idea of someone whose level and power varies according to the location is not one I have thought to put in DnD before.

I could see that if it was caused by the location. The temple giving her power for example. Her true level would be 3 at all times, though. Artifacts granting levels while being held is not a new one to D&D.

 

[Selvarin]

The novels depict him as doing so, although since 4E/5E the Old Farte is generally hiding from enemies and keeping lower-than-low in the process of doing so. But Elminster is portrayed as working schemes within schemes, wheels within wheels, for the betterment of whatever high-minded goal it may be. In FR supplements not so much although he has been used as a tool on occasion to get an adventure started. this is another instance where the perception is greater than what's actually happening, but with good reason.