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

[Irennan]

By "logical" and "restoration" though, do you mean no more cheese?

Generally, both people and companies tend to keep doing the same thing. And WotC in particular is mainly known for re-publishing and putting material in a new outside package with a little bit of added material.

That post in particular for Halruaa seems to use the cheese as the starting point for bring back an entire nation that was supposedly totally obliterated. The topheavy cheese of the Spellplague is still all over that, as is the god drama and so on. It's not all that terribly different than their method of saving another NPC by trapping them in an item or a shell of as-yet-unexplained weird Spellplaguey magic. Very selective, like the hand of god swooping down to save this here, and that there. It happens once, kinda cool. It happens to all the high-powered old NPCs and author favorites, it's cheese. I just don't see any evidence of complexity or lowered cheese there. Then again, I'm probably difficult to convince.

Yeah, as I said, while restoration and logical might mean keeping the cheese (because it will always be there, short of a reboot), I'm going to not even try to have this ''Sundering'' make sense and look at it for what it actually is: a huge Deus ex Machina to bring back what was destroyed and start again as if all the RSE had never happened (they're history now) --i.e. basically creating from scraps, but while using everything flavorful and unique that was removed and reintroducing it in the ''new'' Realms, and then focusing on building the world-- This is what I hope WotC will do (since we're not getting a reboot), possibly by letting Ed be at the helm of all this.

Lets face it, the old Realms will never be supported again (mainly because ''but muh Drizzt/insert whoever here''), but what was good in them can still be brought over in the ''present'' Realms, even if doing so costs adding cheese on top something that has already been drowned in it. In that regard, there's nothing left to lose anymore.

 

[Mirtek]

Just off the top of my head. In 1e, all FR clerics were just that, clerics. Then, in 2e, you have specialty priests, which used a different xp table, different weapons and armour and completely different spell lists. My 2e Priest of Kossuth from Faiths and Avatars had access to all wizard fire spells as cleric spells, could use swords, and, by 5th level, could summon a fire elemental once a ten-day. 3e rolls around, and all that gets entirely retconned yet again as clerics are now shoe-horned into 3e's class structure. My Priest of Kossuth was now impossible to make in 3e - or at least extremely difficult and would take about double digit levels to re-create. 4e rolls around and redoes everything once again, and now 5e has restructured things for a fifth time.

That's not really retconning, because it doesn't affect the story/lore, since the novels never cared about the game rules.

 

[Hussar]

That's not really retconning, because it doesn't affect the story/lore, since the novels never cared about the game rules.

It certainly does affect the game though. Suddenly my cleric of Kossuth (2e) cannot do most of the things he could do, once we switch to 3e. How is that not a retcon? Never mind the fact that clerics could now spontaneously cast, which they couldn't before.

I couldn't care less about the novel line and I've never heard anyone complain about the Spell Plague from a novel line POV. It's always from an game POV.

 

[Sailor Moon]

It certainly does affect the game though. Suddenly my cleric of Kossuth (2e) cannot do most of the things he could do, once we switch to 3e. How is that not a retcon? Never mind the fact that clerics could now spontaneously cast, which they couldn't before.

I couldn't care less about the novel line and I've never heard anyone complain about the Spell Plague from a novel line POV. It's always from an game POV.

That's just an edition change, not a retcon.

 

[Prism]

I think the Sundering was supposed to be less intrusive than the Time of Troubles as it was set so far in the future and thus any that wanted to ignore it could and those that like it could start new campaigns in the new timeline. However I didn't actually seem to work out that way because it pretty much meant the old era was left untouched and that's not what the fans of FR wanted. I seems like the novel authors were also persuaded to write for the new time and therefore many had to leave their old stories behind

 

[Hussar]

That's just an edition change, not a retcon.

Ok... Umm... when continuity is changed from one point to another, isn't that a retcon by definition? Is the addition of a given race, say, Tieflings into the setting, where suddenly you have fully grown, adult tieflings (and other plane touched) floating around where, the day before, no one had ever heard of them before, a retcon?

Perhaps you are using a definition of retcon you'd like to share with everyone else? After all, you were pretty quick to condemn the addition of dragon born as just "change for changes sake" but, doesn't your argument equally apply? After all, dragon born are a 4e core race. Therefore adding dragon born to FR is simply an edition change. Isn't it?

 

[Laeknir]

Lets face it, the old Realms will never be supported again (...)

I'm not really sure this is true. I think it's more than possible that if they publish a 5E FR book and it fails financially, they'd consider completely starting over. If that happened, a total reboot to 1E might indeed happen. Updating the OGB edition with new artwork and more detailed newer maps would be where they'd go, I think. And it's right up WotC's alley, because they've mastered the art of republishing old stuff in a shinier package.

Given how many people have complained bitterly about this change or that, I think a considerable number of people would buy that who wouldn't buy a post-Spellplague-plus-Sundering product. Because minor revisions of the Spellplague probably aren't going to be enough for many. I think what we're seeing now is a "punt" kick that they hope will sell, but if it doesn't then they'll go full reboot. This way, if 5E Realms fails, they can say they gave it one legit final shot in order to preserve timeline continuity, to appease fans who liked 4E or begged them not to reboot so novels aren't undone.

I mean, there are already Realmsians who are complaining about the minor fixes and revisions in post-Sundering Realms, saying they've not been done right.

It all really depends on how well the 5E Realms sell, IMO.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

The novels have cared about the rules off and on throughout the history of the Forgotten Realms, to greater and lesser degree, based on the requirements of editors and what the authors thought best to do.

Some sticking points have been things like what to do with infranvision(2e)/darkvision(3e).

I couldn't care less about the novel line and I've never heard anyone complain about the Spell Plague from a novel line POV. It's always from an game POV.

Broaden your horizons, grasshopper. The complaints were many and consistent.

Ok... Umm... when continuity is changed from one point to another, isn't that a retcon by definition?

When you're dealing with the Realms, then no, it isn't.

There's a difference between changing something and adding something (a better word than "adding" would be "revealing"). Just because tieflings weren't introduced as a playable race right away doesn't mean fiend-blooded beings haven't existed in the Realms since the start (and they have).

Some people seem to have this attitude that what's in the rulebooks is all there is, and anything else printed later is a retcon. What a limited, myopic point of view.

It's was editorial policy at TSR, and appears to be the same policy at WotC, to use some Realms novels as vehicles to introduce new types of magic and and other elements to readers, that some may well decide to stat out on their own, or that may find their way into sourcebooks at a future point.

All of this in a fantasy world, mind, that's connected to a seemingly infinite number of other worlds, which allow for the introduction of all manner of beings, monsters, magic, etc.

Dragonborn, for instance.

 

[Mirtek]

It certainly does affect the game though.

It sure does, but it doesn't effect the lore/story. Fiery McBurn is a cleric of Kossuth, though what exactly that means in game terms changes by edition and the novels don't care about the current game rules anyway.

Suddenly my cleric of Kossuth (2e) cannot do most of the things he could do, once we switch to 3e. How is that not a retcon? Never mind the fact that clerics could now spontaneously cast, which they couldn't before.

It might be a retcon as far as your or my local non-canon game is concerned, but the canon FR lore is not impacted by that. Clerics of Kossuth will do what they have always done in the novels, even if the current game rules have changed since then.

Is the addition of a given race, say, Tieflings into the setting, where suddenly you have fully grown, adult tieflings (and other plane touched) floating around where, the day before, no one had ever heard of them before, a retcon?

It may walk the line of being a retcon, since earlier sources never stated that there were no tieflings and Cambions, half-fiends, etc. have been in the FR for a long time. The tieflings originally were very rare and most of them also hid their identity (pre the Asmodeus curse that turned tieflings from being humans with easily hidden minor fiendish features into the 4e tieflings with their huge fiendish features) and passed themselves of as humans.

 

[Hussar]

So, it's not a retcon because there's a justification given for it? I'm thinking that doesn't hold a whole lot of water to be honest. When you start changing settings without any prior inkling that the change is coming, I'd call that a retcon.

But, this is getting a bit pedantic. Call it a retcon, call it a reveal, call it a purple monkey, I don't care. The point is, the Realms have been about as consistent as cottage cheese over the years. We're talking Comic Book levels of consistency. Complaining now about it while ignoring the previous thirty years seems a bit disingenuous and frankly speaks more to the critics personal play preferences than anything else.