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Erik, I've read Faiths and Pantheons and never slagged it off. There's no doubt it has a good amount of new content, obviously in the temple write-ups and also mixed into the longer-form god/priesthood entries. But I turn to the Faiths & Avatars series first, because it is longer and more...

It wouldn't be Greyhawk, it would be for the 'Greyhawk Light' 'default setting' which isn't consistent with itself or with past or (most likely) future Greyhawk lore. It would just be the authors' ideas about giants (plus lots of numbers) which, unless brilliant, would be largely forgotten come...

D&D graphs alignment on a two-dimensional plane of good–evil and chaos–law continua (literally 'shades of grey'). Minor long-term behaviour (A) or single acts (B) which move alignment in the evil direction probably won't push a character into the next square in the grid. I think C is a matter...

But not large-scale emigration in either direction; that was a later rationalization of some of the Earth analogues that TSR appended to the Realms for purely marketing reasons. My point is that no one should believe Henry's glib mischaracterization of the Realms based on additions blatantly...

As on a recent thread, you're seeing a contradiction that doesn't exist. It's not just Ed's 'personal version' of the Realms, and it's not just theoretically canonical, but also in the practice of the other current authors and the publisher, who consistently consult, reflect, and use verbatim...

I wouldn't even call it that -- early publicity suggested it was going to be a sourcebook/adventure hybrid, but it's actually an adventure anthology with some incidental source material. They would better find it in Mystara, since the Earth analogues are appendages bolted on to the Realms by TSR.

For 2007 there are five Realms-branded game products plus Expedition to Undermountain, compared to three or four for each year through 2001–6. Neither is there any reason to suppose low sales. The causes of speculation are the preponderance of adventures over sourcebooks this year, which Rich...

I think they often don't add up for the reason that 'generic' articles contain assumptions, sensibilities and details that can be equivalent to those of named settings. No named setting doesn't mean no setting. But they add up enough to mean less setting material overall, which is fine with me...

There are people who temperamentally prefer setting information to be very light, as in many 'generic' articles; there are very involved named-setting-specific articles which are genuinely hard to transfer; there are people who are prejudiced against anything with setting logos (or particular...

To help Realms DMs and players use the splatbook classes in their games, and to sell them the splatbooks would be two big reasons. Not as far as we know. There are novel releases scheduled through 2010, and Rich Baker has recently expressed excitement about the future of the game line. And...

I agree that 'metagaming' is very imprecise jargon for 'using out-of-character knowledge to a PC's "advantage"', which is a very limited case of it. Only absolute simulationists, who probably don't exist, reject 'metagaming' entirely.

I'm far from an apologist for TSR! I dislike many aspects of how they handled the Realms, including the Time of Troubles, just as you do. What I'm talking about is something that Ed stressed consistently and TSR usually downplayed, except a few specific cases when they did want to take advantage...

Of course there's an official continuity, which tries to be consistent with itself, just like every other setting. Otherwise publishing the Realms would be impossible. There's just no demand, insinuation, or anything like that, that your campaign should follow it. I think you're very mistaken...

Bears repeating. Up until 3E, most of the magazine articles and sourcebooks explicitly used unreliable narrators for just the reason ruleslawyer mentions. That's in large part what Elminster, and later Volo, were for. The original Campaign Set, for instance, stresses throughout that the DM...

I think so too -- it doesn't match anyone I've GMed for. But it's quoted direct from the article, which suggests DMs' and players' wants are necessarily at odds, which is what I disagree with.

You can choose the players you have. I'd much rather not DM than DM for players who aren't interested in the campaign's setting and its history. 'I want it! I want it! I want it!', relegating everything except your PC to 'window dressing', is abnormal, childish egotism. Players who do appreciate...

There's nothing that players can do in 3E that they can't in a competently DMed 1E campaign.

As I said, 'most folk in the Realms have one god which they worship above (if only slightly above) others'. The FRCS's emphasis on a 'patron deity' is known to be overstated, partly for purposes of rules simplicity. The resurrection factor is very minor, since most people don't anticipate either...

More Realmslore clarifications, not applying directly to Li's campaign, but for those interested. There are sources which seem to say one is the sole determinant of the other, but they're poorly phrased, easily misunderstood simplifications. 'Directly proportional' and similar language, though...

The thread is a lot of speculation about a very vague situation. We don't even know if this character is a member of Shar's organization, or if he just has a personal affinity to her. Going back to Li's original post, 'player demands that since Shar is a "major" deity (strongest) there must be...