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

[HobbitFan]

Something I think needs to be said about the recent exchange of posts back and forth.

Just because stupid stuff was done in the Realms in the past, that doesn't excuse stupid stuff happening in the present.
Plenty of fans have complained and continue to complain about writers and game designers dumping Realm shaking event after realm shaking event on the setting just to sell novels.

I didn't like the Time of Troubles. Or alot of the other BIG STORYLINES-TM, that they force upon the setting.
So it's entirely consistent for me to complain about the 4E mess.
That;s one point.

Fans can argue about alot of things. Little change versus big changes for example.
Or people might liek the basic idea of something but think it was executed poorly.
People can have different levels of approval for different elements of a setting even though they might, in general, have a thumbs-up or thumbs-down opinion of the whole shebang.

In general I don;t like retcons. Stuff liek saying orc and halfling gods were actually aspect of human gods all the time is just stupid. That's soemone arbitrarily deciding to make the gods list smaller because of personal preference and forcing that design upon the setting. That change doesn't net the Realms anything and it in fact takes a great deal away to no benefit.
That to me is an example of bad design.

 

[Irennan]

Something I think needs to be said about the recent exchange of posts back and forth.

Just because stupid stuff was done in the Realms in the past, that doesn't excuse stupid stuff happening in the present.

If they have to bring back all that was removed with the ''cheese'' of the previous years, they will have to do so with more ''cheese'' (by working with what ''cheese'' they already have anyway). Thus the idea Sundering was born, the RSE to end them all, or whatever other buzzword they have for it.

 

[HobbitFan]

Reading through the 5E DMG the section o entitled "When Not to Shake It UP" in the camapign events section (pg. 27) gives me hope that WOTC realizes they need to give the RSE's a rest.

 

[SirAntoine]

Bringing back Halruaa is necessary, so are Mulhorand, Unther, and others, and I hope they fill in the giant hole in the ground they added!

 

[Henry]

Bringing back Halruaa is necessary, so are Mulhorand, Unther, and others, and I hope they fill in the giant hole in the ground they added!

I'm OK with keeping the hole -- I remember very few good adventures or modules actually set in Halruaa or Unther anyway. If they actually just LEFT IT THE **** ALONE for a few years and wrote culturally Realms-specific stories for it, I think I'd be happy to run a game set in it again.

As I said once before, I want Manshoon and Zhentarim, Bhaal and Myrkul, not Tiamat and Tharizdun. I'm afraid we'll start seeing Strahd von Zarovich show up there next, or Dalamar pops up because he showed up in one of those "Wizards Three" articles and now he wants to invade the Realms and take rulership of the Red Wizards and restore them to greatness.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

I'm afraid we'll start seeing Strahd von Zarovich show up there next, or Dalamar pops up because he showed up in one of those "Wizards Three" articles and now he wants to invade the Realms and take rulership of the Red Wizards and restore them to greatness.

As it happens, there's a recent comment by the creator of the Realms that discusses the Wizards Three, and the Realms mixing it up with other worlds: LINK.

Timing, as they say, is everything.

 

[SirAntoine]

Hah!

As it happens, there's a recent comment by the creator of the Realms that discusses the Wizards Three and the Realms mixing it up with other worlds: LINK.

Timing, as they say, is everything.

Ed Greenwood is right, of course. All of the worlds of D&D should be visitable by characters who originate in any one of them, and deities and others powerful enough to travel freely between them should be able to have as big a role as they choose to. However, this doesn't advocate undermining the traditions of any of the worlds.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

However, this doesn't advocate undermining the traditions of any of the worlds.

I can appreciate the sentiment. I wouldn't like to see characters from one world roaming around in another either.

But I think there's room for terrible places(TM) and terrible powers(TM) to find their way into more than one campaign setting.

Better new players get a taste, then have no idea, so long as it's done with some care and attention.

 

[Hussar]

Ed Greenwood is right, of course. All of the worlds of D&D should be visitable by characters who originate in any one of them, and deities and others powerful enough to travel freely between them should be able to have as big a role as they choose to. However, this doesn't advocate underming the traditions of any of the worlds.

Again, I'm sorry, but the irony of this is just staggering. One of the biggest, most well known deities in Forgotten Realms started in Greyhawk. Lolth and all things Drow is a Greyhawk invention that was ported, pretty much whole cloth, from Greyhawk into the Realms. The most popular character in FR owes his entire schtick to Greyhawk.

Since when didn't FR beg, borrow or outright steal material from other settings? So much of Greyhawk and other settings - never minding things like Kara Tur which is just rebranded Oriental Adventures, straight from Greyhawk, or Al Quadim (sp) which is ported directly into FR, or heck, even Waterdeep borrows pretty heavily from the City of Greyhawk (hidden leaders, for example) - have been dropped into FR that it's pretty impossible to claim that you could undermine anything.

FR has been the baseline setting for D&D for about thirty years now. Certainly since the day Gygax left TSR. Virtually everything that was made by TSR eventually got dumped somewhere in the Realms.

I always thought that was the main draw of the Realms to be honest.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

One of the founding pillars of 2nd Edition D&D was "If it's in D&D, it's in the Realms."

Of course, the Realms predates Greyhawk as a fantasy setting, and the Realms creator is responsible for adding a great deal to the game beyond just his Realms work, so be careful when assuming everything came first in Greyhawk.