Are you excited about the Forgotten Realms setting changes?

[Edena_of_Neith]

I understand and appreciate your point, Voss.
I just don't know how to address it. Different people want different things. Too much difference, and there is a compatibility problem.
The players, in the case you are discussing, have a very real problem and some creative thinking is called for to solve it. Everyone wants to have fun, of course, and should be able to find a way to enjoy themselves in the game.

 

[Teemu]

Edena,

Its not really that simple though. Say a group is starting up a new campaign. The DM and 1 other like the new realms. 2 are die hard grey box era fans. 1 doesn't care. They start to bicker: the supporters arguing that the New Realms are all that are going to get official support, grey box fans claiming there is plenty of old material that works just fine, as fluff is independent of the new rules. Some don't want to learn the new lore, others don't want to learn the old lore.

The group breaks up and doesn't play. Boy, that makes for a fun experience!

How does this differ from the current situation? Gray Box era =/= 3e Realms.

 

[Voss]

How does this differ from the current situation? Gray Box era =/= 3e Realms.

Why make it worse?

 

[Sammael]

I have Cloak and Dagger, and I honestly don't see what he's saying. Roughly 90% of plots from Cloak and Dagger remain viable in 3E.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

Why make it worse?

To give different people different eras of play? Should TSR never have produced the arcane age supplements? If you cannot decide in which era to play with your group, well.... I begin my next campaign in the Grey Box era. Maybe the next game after that is after the 100 year leap, who knows. More options.

 

[Hussar]

Stories that have done well with time jumps:

Star Trek
Heh, Lord of the Rings - after all, Frodo sits around for like many, many years after Bilbo leaves.
Thieves World
Alien (in the Dark Horse comics, NOT the movies)
Battlestar Galactica - and here's a time jump that pretty much dumps all previous canon
The Shanara series
Narnia

But, the point is certainly valid. There are all sorts of examples where trying to move the timeline forward, or messing with canon, has produced some very mixed and sometimes quite bad results.

Look at the first three seasons of Enterprise. Phew. Those stunk and I'm a pretty easy going viewer. But, to be fair, the fourth season, once they finally found their legs, was some of the best Trek in years. Unfortunately, too little, too late.

The problem is, it's very, very hard to compare RPG settings to any literary or media settings. We have no say in how the Trek universe plays out. None. We can watch or not watch, but, other than that, we're completely passive. In an RPG setting, players are actively meant to engage in the setting - which means that the setting changes for each and every group that plays.

I can totally sympathize with those who feel kicked in the teeth by these changes. People own their settings. They put huge amounts of work into them and for someone else to come along and kick over the sand heap is not fun. But, unfortunately, WOTC can't protect your setting. They can only do stuff which hopefully keeps their setting economically viable.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

Try this as a way of looking at the Grand History of the Realms:

- The Arcane Age Setting (all Arcane Age rules in effect) - Covers all the time from -100,000 DR (the end of the Age of Thunder and the Time of the Creator Races) to the Fall of Netheril
- The Fall of Myth Drannor Setting (modified Arcane Age rules in effect) - Covers the time from the Fall of Netheril to the Fall of Myth Drannor, a time in which the use of High Magic was truly deadly
- The 1st Edition Realms (all 1st Edition rules in effect) - Covers the time from the Fall of Myth Drannor to the Time of Troubles.
- The 2nd Edition Realms (all 2nd Edition rules in effect) - Covers the time from the Time of Troubles until the End of the Elven Retreat and the Rise of the Dwarves (the dwarves start becoming wizards.)
- The 3rd Edition Realms (3.0 and 3.5 rules in effect) - Covers the time from the Rise of the Dwarves until sometime during the Spellplague.
- The 4th Edition Realms (all 4th Edition rules in effect) - Covers the Forgotten Realms from sometime during the Spellplague onward.

So, for example, for around 95,000 years, you had to deal with assorted ways of casting magic (elven, Netherese, Imaskari, Djinn Calimshan, etc.) and 10th and 11th level spells could be freely cast. And there were *Archwizards*, super-mages who could throw 40d6 fireballs.

After the Fall of Netheril, no more 10th and 11th level spells (except for elves, and only 10th level for them.) Elven High Magic is deadly to cast, but less so as time wears on.
A 30th level wizard, like the Simbul, could still throw a 30d6 fireball, since no caps existed on spells.
No more 10th level spells. Period.

Enter the Time of Troubles. After that, assassins worked differently (if they worked at all) and your fireball was limited to 10 dice, along with many other spells.

Enter the 3rd Edition world. We have new concepts such as Prestige Classes, so history must be subtly rewritten (it makes sense that they were always there ... a Purple Dragon Knight was a generic cavalier or fighter; now he's a Prestige Class with his own abilities.)

Enter the 4th Edition world. Things are new and strange. All the rules are different. People remember how the Old World worked, but it sure doesn't work that way now.

That's over a hundred thousand years of Realmstime to play in, and just one FR setting out of countless Alternate FR Settings (for example, one in which the Chosen of Mystra are less powerful and influencial than they are in the Canon, as is desired by some people. Or perhaps one in which the Red Wizards of Thay are intelligent, organized, united, and a real threat to everyone else.)
You can pick and choose your timeline, and in FR, the timeline determines the rules! (If you allow it to.) Don't like the 2nd edition rules? Go to the 1st edition timeline and the Grey Box. Don't like 3rd edition? Stick with 2nd. Like 4th? Go straight there.

Alter the timeline to suit yourself. Maybe the Arcane Age rules never existed, and people could NEVER throw around 10th and 11th level spells. Maybe 3rd Edition was always the way of Toril, with all the new and neat PrCs running around. Or maybe the Spellplague never happens, or if it does it does not change the rules ... or change them much.

You are in control, you and your group. You have all that FR material out there - more published FR material than has ever been out in history, enough material you could literally spend years reading it all (go to Candlekeep and see for yourself, and consider the numerous FR novels.)
You have an INCREDIBLE wealth of material to pick and choose from. A banquet laid out for you and your players. Why not enjoy it?

As for one player wanting this, and another player wanting that, we have all been at those tables. And we all know the meaning of the word Compromise. For that is what we must do, in order to make things work.

Don't give up on FR because it's been changed in 4E.
Consider that a whole new world (maybe desirable, maybe not) has been created, and you can have it, or stick with your own FR. You can have your cake and eat it too. It's your party, and you are in charge.

That's how I see things.

Cheers to my fellow Hobbyists.

Sincerely Yours
Edena_of_Neith (who is a longtime Realms Fan)

 

[The Little Raven]

Why make it worse?

Stating subjective things as if they were absolutes does not make them so. Even if you believe really hard.

Your "worse" is my "better," and your "awesome Grey Box Realms" is my "get that crap away from me Realms."

 

[Fenes]

I do not see the rules having that much of an impact. I can play in any age using 3.0 rules, with just slight modifications - I don't really sweat the "but you can't be an assassin in 2E" stuff, since assassin for me is not a set of rules, but a function.

But for those who say WotC is not repeating the NGE of SWG: The biggest problem SWG faces is not the fact so many veterans left with the NGE, it's the fact that so many of those who left are so bitter about their treatment that they continue to spread their views all over the MMOG scene.

That could happen to FR as well.

Personally, I don't see any need for drastic changes at all - the canon "weight" is still there for those who care about it, in every ruin the adventurers may explore there can be something that an oldtimer takes offense with for violating past realmslore. Just about every of the long-lived NPCs can still be around. Most of the "core" settings were not changed enough to ditch all the lore either.

It looks to me like this was just some people forcing their own home brew on the realms by adding stuff they think is cool.

I would have vastly preferred a 4E FR that was less "sledgehammer", and more "Actually, we almost have it already, look..."

Tieflings? They were already there, no need to change anything, one can simply add "Many of those come from relams and ages where devils/demons were influential".

Dragonborn? Lizardfolk are common. Reptilian creator races were around as well. A few more scaly folks are not going to trouble anyone, especially if by lore they do not have an empire of their own.

Magic mechanical changes? Ignore them. A wizard is a wizard. No need to justify rules tweaks with fluff changes. Most of the novels never followed D&D rules anyway.

Points of Light? Again, many parts of the old realms qualify, pick one and make it a starter location.

 

[The Little Raven]

But for those who say WotC is not repeating the NGE of SWG: The biggest problem SWG faces is not the fact so many veterans left with the NGE, it's the fact that so many of those who left are so bitter about their treatment that they continue to spread their views all over the MMOG scene.

The reason this analogy doesn't work is because SWG completely changed it's own gameplay after release, not because it had differences from a previous edition of the game. If they had managed to somehow ruin 1e/2e/3e halfway through it's lifespan, it would apply... but that's frankly impossible.