No. I don't know if you are reading what I've actually said or not. But any paraphrasing you are doing regrading my positions and statements is certainly absolutely wrong and inaccurate.
I did not say or imply:
- That Ed made the maps when he was 16.
- Nor did I say that he currently has no creative control.
- Or that we should be nice to Ed.
- Nor that I challenged if anyone 16 could do better today.
I don't know if you are just hung up on what you think the discussion is, or if you are not discussing with intellectual honesty or not. But it doesn't matter. No one else appears interested in the discussion and I am no longer interested in discussing it with you.
Ah, the classic "you are probably be lying so I'm not talking to you." I happens every single time I talk to people on this forum. Glad to keep the trend up.
Let's see... this post? The first one I responded to?
The Forgotten Realms was created by an 8 year old American boy. At least that is when Ed wrote his first stories of it. He created the D&D setting at age 16 in 1975.
I think perhaps you give anyone too much credit for being able to produce a viable world that accounted for agriculture, commerce, etc at that age and in those years prior to the internet and the mass availability of knowledge that would allow such today. I know its fun to poke at Americans, but really, I don't think what you want could have been done by any child the world over in those years.
(And no, I'm not a fan of the Realms, but I do often run games set there because it is readily available and good enough setting for the feel that interests me.)
Now, I will admit, going back to look, I see I did misread that last line there about how you don't believe that what we are talking about could have been down by any child in the world.
However, the large structure of your post is still the same, and I still challenge it. Yes, Ed Greenwood made the realms when he was 8. Yes, he helped create the DnD setting when he was 16.
The Realms have not been static since 1975. Ed Greenwood isn't even the creative force behind the modern Realms according to your more recent posts, since you scoffed at the idea that the map of Phandalin which we talked about in this thread was made by him.
We literally, in 2014, had the Second Sundering. Time and Space were ripped apart in the Realms and things were changed. No 16 year olds were involved in this process, as a matter of obvious fact. So, there was yet again a chance that minor details like this could have been changed, and going back and saying that no one in 1975 could have made the setting care about those things, and especially not a 16 year old teenager who made the setting when he was 8, misses the point. Adult men have been writing, refining, and changing the Realms for decades. They could have chosen to change it.
And, again, I understand the argument of "why change what is working" that's a fair point. But the idea of "Well, the Realms were created by a 16 yr old in 1975 so you really can't expect these things from it" is just ignoring the fact that the Realms has been changed and evolved many times since 1975.
We don't need to discuss this further, I don't care to defend the position of "Adults have worked on the Realms for the past 40+ years" because I find it rather self-evident.