D&D 5E Why FR Is "Hated"

[Shasarak]

Huh?

Didn't I JUST post about T1 where virtually none of the NPC's use PC rules? Like about less than 10%?

I'm getting confused.

So NPCs used the same rules as PCs in ADnD, in ADnD 2e and in 3e and also it was something only ever introduced in 3e?

That clears that up I guess.

 

[Chaosmancer]

It's a template no different from say being a half-celestial as a race. It has zero, zip, nada, zilch, nothing to do with his class levels.

I was not aware there was a template for being the chosen of a diety. I figured that was simply a storytelling title to explain why he was a wizard with extreme magic, because he is the chosen of the goddess of magic, who grants him all sorts of goodies because of it.

In the context of it being irrelevant to the discussion of NPCs with lots of class levels. We're discussing mortal NCPs, not gods. The instant you try to bring gods into this, every PC in every official setting is overshadowed. Dark Sun had lots of super high level NPCs, so...

But we are discussing how mortals gain power/levels correct?

If a god can grant power to a mortal and the writers represent that by writing them as a level 6 paladin that is the exact same as representing the washed up thief as a level 10 warlock because he pleased Baphomet by killing an eating his own children in a dark ritual that granted him power or representing a young girl as a level 15 druid after she becomes the Voice of the Trees in a different ritual.

Your point, as I understood it, is that no NPC can just be shown as having a lot of character levels if they have not gone off adventuring.

Gods can, and they can grant power to others that is represented that way, by your own admission. And if the gods can, any sufficiently powerful source can. An NPC might be shown as a level 20 artificer because they were flung to Mechanus and learned great secrets of the universe, but he never went through the adventuring process of levels 1-19, he just jumped straight to having a whole lot of power with little experience. Or anything else, and it makes sense within the context of the game world to do it this way.

Super powerful wizard is super powerful wizard bud. They are the same to this discussion. The exact details are not important.

I would say within the context of “How do these NPCs interact with the PCs” the details matter quite a bit.

Super Powerful Wizard who loves going around and telling people stuff about the world is going to interact quite differently than Super Powerful Wizard who kills anyone who knocks on his door.

One is much more likely to interact with the PCs than the other. And the second is only going to come into play if the characters decide to go searching him out.

A) That's a novel. In a novel, Elminster isn't an NPC, he's effectively a PC because the story is about him.
B) I'm referring to campaign source material. Novels don't qualify, especially ones published years after the campaign sourcebooks, and probably years after the FR campaign I was running.
C) What novel, and when was it published?
Probably true.
No, it really isn't.
In one of the Elminster novels. Not actual campaign source material then.

I’m not super familiar with everything, but I just recently heard (I believe in this very thread) that anything Ed Greenwood says about the Realms is canon unless directly contradicted.

So… what makes an Ed Greenwood novel less canon than campaign material? We are talking about the characters personality here, and if it is canon it is canon.

Also, for “B” why do we care when you were running an FR campaign? Why would novels written before you ran a campaign qualify any more or less than novels written before I run a campaign in 3 months, or a year. What makes the older stuff more acceptable to Canon than the new stuff? It is all canon.

*Reads a bit more*

And this is the problem with needing to catch up. Hard to keep track of this thread sometimes.

(this Goblin Chief is treated as a LvL 4 Fighter - not that that goblin chief actually WAS a Level 4 fighter)

Out of curiosity because of my discussion with [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] is there a meaningful distinction that is generally drawn there?

Because, being treated like a classed person and being a classed person look the same from a game perspective (because people don’t know things like levels exist in-game world) and are very similar or identical mechanically depending on how it was done.

So, is this a big distinction I am missing or a minor one?

As a profession?
In the real world, the most common profession is something like 0.1%. Which, in several states, are teachers. Because, let's face it, everyone interacts with multiple teachers in their life (even excluding post-secondary).
Making PC classes 10% of the population means being a wizard is somehow more common than being an elementary school teacher. More people know magic than teach grades 1-6.


This was really a 3e problem, as it codified how often NPCs would have class levels. Moreso than other editions. And it was pretty damn high. Adventurers were common. The Realms and Eberron both ran with that.

This is a fascinating statistic I had never heard before.

That is definitely worth keeping in mind… I know there is a way to use that one day,

 

[Shasarak]

Making PC classes 10% of the population means being a wizard is somehow more common than being an elementary school teacher. More people know magic than teach grades 1-6.

I know which profession I would choose to be if given that choice.

 

[MackMcMacky]

Dude, I mentioned Castle Greyhawk as a setting location in the context that it could easily be moved to another setting entirely. You then pointed out that Castle Greyhawk was an adventure. So I clarified that I meant the actual location and not the crappy module.

But the crappiness of that module is actually a good example of what we're talking about. Just about everyone disregards it. Rightly so.

So can't we do that about other setting elements we don't care for?



So Elminster is in some FR modules, and in your eyes that makes him ever present and inseperable from the setting....but Vecna appears in some Greyhawk modules, and you point out that they can be ignored?

And in 3E, Vecna was a member of the Oerth Pantheon.

Please end the "Dude" stuff. Castle Greyhawk, whichever version you use, is a location and, unless you go with a whole new concept for it, a place of adventure. And yes, it is easily 'ported over into other settings because many adventures in Greyhawk could be easily 'ported over into other settings. Not so much with many of the FRealms adventures I purchased in the vain hope of doing so.

Elminster saves the day and is used in at least a few modules as the DM's hammer to railroad PCs. Vecna is a threat to be defeated. Elminster is an uber NPC who is in the foreground of the setting far too much. Vecna is a monster/god used as a threat in a couple of modules and later grafted onto the Greyhawk setting as part of a pantheon. They simply don't occupy the same space in a campaign. They don't have anything like the same function. I can't help you if you can't see that.

Seriously, there is an obvious difference in the early approach to adventure design and NPC activity in the two settings. I am glad they don't do much with Greyhawk anymore because I think they have learned quite a few bad habits from their FRealms approach and would just muck up another setting.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I know which profession I would choose to be if given that choice.

The teacher's union is powerful even on made up worlds!

 

[HobbitFan]

The perception of high level NPCs IN FR being a problem is in part a consequence of having a long-standing novel line with storylines that directly impacted the timeline.

In their own novels, Drizzt and Elminster, Alias and etc. can take center stage and rightly should as its their story.
Far different thing in a home FR campaign. There the PCs and NPCs of that individual game group should take center stage with novels movers and shakers relegated to supporting roles decided by the individual Dungeon Master. It's a big world in an even bigger planar cosmos with plenty of room to tell countless, varied storylines.

It's not an insurmountable problem, Dungeon Master's just have to take the responsibility to be clear that their campaign is their own and be honest with players, especially one's with extensive novel/sourcebook knowledge that what's past is prologue. The real story of the Realms is being written each game as we play.

TSR and WOTC haven't helped with all the Realm Shattering events over the years which while they sold novels and adventures, didn't do the Forgotten Realms any favors as a campaign setting.
All the brain dead 4E Realms changes are an excellent example.

Bottom line, make the Realms your own and play them.. If you like them.
If you don't like the Realms, That's your right too. Just please don't crap on other people's good times by harping on about how terrible the Realms are.

Part of the problem is the Realms, at least people's perceptions of them. Part opf the problem, I'd guess, is people disagreeing with something in another person's game and projecting that onto the Realms. And a third problem is that with the notable exception of Curse of Strahd, WOTC is pretty much putting all their eggs in the FR basket but paying lip service to the other campaign settings. That's WOTC's problem, that's not the Realms problem per se....

 

[prosfilaes]

Yes, so the 0 level archaeologists that cant jump from tanks or fight nazis get killed off or captured and then rescued by the people of higher level that can do those things. The ability to stay at home and google everything you need is a very recent invention compared to the old fashioned having to go out and get it done yourself way of the past.

Historically, archaeologists are a recent phenomenon, and either got out of the way of violent people or had armed people trained in violence surrounding their camp. Archaeologists were not warriors, and when they were rescued, were rescued by military, not archaeologists.

You dont actually really communicate directly with Gods (unless you, you know, do) so the most obvious one to tell you what the God wants is his ranking cleric. And frankly if that guy is lazing around preaching peace and love then it is probably going to be him that needs the raising . Lucky that Adventuring Cleric is out leveling up.

That's an incredibly brutal setting you have. In the Forgotten Realms, there's gods like Milil and Deneir and Oghma who would be remiss if they spent too much time on fighting instead of what their god is all about. Leave the violence to Tyr and Torm and Helm.

 

[Lanefan]

I just checked. Not counting noncombatants (mostly wives and children), there are 77 0 level militia in Hommlet and 15 leveled individuals. We're talking about 10% of the population in a village that is hardly typical. In the Moat House, we get 8 Brigands (unique stat blocks) led by a 2nd level fighter. Lower down we get 6 Guardsmen and 1 Sergeant - no levels. In the next encounter, we get 12 guards, 2 sergeants and a 4th level fighter leader. The final encounter is Lareth the Beautiful, who is a 5th level cleric.

I'm not really sure you can say that class leveled individuals are all that common when the only classed individuals we see are humans/demi-humans and even then on ly a small fraction of those.

Not all that common as a percentage of the overall population, but certainly much more common than a flat-out declaration of "only PCs have levels" which is what I was responding to.

Hell, even if only 1% of the overall population have levels that's still going to add up to a whole bunch of levelled individuals when taken as a whole. Me, I'd put it at more like 5% overall with the large majority of such being 3rd level or lower.

Lan-"charter member of the 1% but, alas, only in the game world"-efan

 

[prosfilaes]

Just please don't crap on other people's good times by harping on about how terrible the Realms are.

How about if you can't handle criticism of the Forgotten Realms, you don't read a thread titled "Why FR is Hated"? Should we shut down RPGGeek and BoardGameGeek and IMDB because any comments about how Monopoly or Ghost Dad weren't good are crapping on other people's good times. Criticism will not and should not stop because it might offend some people.

 

[Lanefan]

If one person out of a million is level 18 and then you have twice as many at each lower level, that's a lot more than one in ten with class levels. One in four, roughly. Relevantly for this thread, it's pretty clear that FR doesn't bother to follow that rule, hugely inflating the number of high-level NPCs.

I suspect that, other than a few specific classes that limit the number of very high level people (e.g. Monk, Assassin), it's not as simple an equation as just doubling for each lower level. It'll be more like a J-curve - lots and lots of low-level types (relatively speaking), nowhere near as many mid-level types, but those mid-level types will then have a better chance of surviving to become high-level types.

Also, keep in mind that the distribution of those low level types among the classes probably won't reflect the makeup of the average adventuring party. Many - maybe most - of the low-levels will have those levels in fighter, earned during army or militia tours. Next most common will be low-level thieves or rogues, having earned said levels on the streets. Quite uncommon will be low-level temple clerics, lab mages, lone-wolf rangers, travelling-minstrel bards, and the like.

Yet another thing to keep in mind is that (due to what I've always seen as a fault in the game mechanics) once a level is earned it's kept for life, barring any unlucky encounters with level-drainers in games that have such. This means that many of the levelled individuals in a given place may be retired and-or inactive, though they still have their levels.

This was really a 3e problem, as it codified how often NPCs would have class levels. Moreso than other editions. And it was pretty damn high. Adventurers were common. The Realms and Eberron both ran with that.

3e also gave levels to non-adventuring "classes" e.g. noble, commoner, etc. along with making adventurers somewhat more common. The non-adventuring levels were complete overkill, IMO. The commonality of adventurers, however, can easily be dialled up or down; 3e just dialled it up to about 11 or so.