Are You Using the 4E Forgotten Realms as a Setting?

[Fenes]

And seriously, those who don't even own the 4th edition CS book? How can you accurately weigh in on this topic if you don't even own the book? "I hate the new Franz Ferdinand CD. Do I own it? No. Have I listened to any of the songs it? ...Uhh...no...but I read on a web site that it was terrible."

I own it. Pretty much useless for me no matter the system - no details, just broad strokes who offer not real "feel" of any region, and plot hooks that are too basic to be of much real use.

 

[Sammael]

I went through the book in detail at my gaming store. Aside from one or two nifty plot hooks, I found the book to be of no value whatsoever to me.

 

[Wraith Form]

:: rolls eyes ::

 

[Wraith Form]

I own it. Pretty much useless for me no matter the system - no details, just broad strokes who offer not real "feel" of any region, and plot hooks that are too basic to be of much real use.

...And, again, looking at the Grey Box AND the 2nd edition CS boxed set, both which are two feet away from me right now, I can say the exact same thing. Minus the plot hooks.

 

[Fenes]

...And, again, looking at the Grey Box AND the 2nd edition CS boxed set, both which are two feet away from me right now, I can say the exact same thing. Minus the plot hooks.

I don't really care what the grey box offered or didn't offer - I care that the 4E realms doesn't offer me anything of value apart from plot hooks I could get off any ideas thread in better detail, and that it invalidates most of my existing FR material.

No gain and a huge loss = no use for me.

 

[Wraith Form]

Fair enough, sir! Let the beating cease!

:: walks away from dead horse, dropping club ::

 

[Dragonhelm]

Yep, I'm using it.

I may be a little different than many posters here in that I'm not an FR veteran. I played in some 2e FR campaigns, but they were hardly world-spanning or got into too much politics. My group didn't use 3e FR at all, mainly because it felt like the world was too detailed (with stat blocks and backstory) and we couldn't really find a place for our characters to fit in.

Thus, 4e FR was written for me.

This is a point worth mentioning. Undoubtedly, it depends on the audience as to whether or not you're using the new Realms. The 4e version is very much a restart, and a way to get new players in. If they haven't played the Realms for several editions, then the new edition is a great jumping-off point.

For that matter, players who may have walked away from the Realms for a while now may come back now that it's had a reset.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I blew it up cooler a few years ago, and I don't think I'll be going back. I don't have any reason to play FR. I've never had much of a link to the novels or games or the characters, and I've never had much of a need for generic fantasy settings.

I am using a Wereserpent from the FRCG in my upcoming game to introduce a long-term yuan-ti based threat, which is pretty useful, and I've played a swordmage, but those are just independent crunchy bits that don't have much to do with the setting itself, which I still have no use for, even without the omnipresent happy magic making everything peachy.

 

[Irda Ranger]

No. It's not a campaign setting. It's the 4E Core Rules (plus spellscarred) barfed onto a map WotC had publishing rights to. Some echos of a former campaign setting remain, but I already own the Grey Box.

The Forgotten Realms used to have a feel. So did Dark Sun, Planescape - all the good settings you remember long after you've moved on. The new FR just doesn't feel like anything in particular, other than a confused mess. A good DM could still run a great campaign there, but he'd have to do all the heavy lifting.

(Not that I may do exactly per the above one day; but it wouldn't really be recognizably the 4E Realms. I'd probably just borrow ideas from the 4E FRCS here and there to advance the timeline in my own way. And I'm happy to borrow crunch.)

Too many elements have been introduced and changed. Cultures with thousands of years of history and hundreds of pages of supplements were just wiped off the map so they could fit in Dragonborn or Genasi. I feel like someone forcibly traded a library of travel journals written by people who were there for a Lonely Planet guide with half the pages missing.

I want to emphasize that I am not some "Realms purist." I'd be happy to play in a reimagined Realms if I thought it was any good as a setting. I just don't have any need for a collection of encounter locations loosely connected by whisps of plot left over from an R. A. Salvatore novel.

 

[Alzrius]

That's pretty weird, as (looking at my 2nd edition FRCS boxed set which is right here next to me) I could say, verbatim, the exact same thing about it back then.

Only if you look at that specific part of my post and ignore the rest, which coincidentally is exactly what you did.

The older campaign settings didn't go out of their way to invalidate previous material the way the new one did. The Time of Troubles didn't mean that your previous material was now completely irrelevant, since geographic boundaries hadn't changed and a century hadn't passed.

The point here isn't to compare the various FR setting books throughout the editions. FR previously had a wealth of information across various supplements, adventures, novels, magazine articles, etc. which has now all been invalidated, and we're never going to get that same level of detail again (at least not in 4E). WotC has already said that they're not going to release any more FR books beyond the Campaign Guide, Player's Guide, and a single adventure. So, sporadic articles in DDI and new novels notwithstanding, the Realms has lost pretty much all of the depth and detail that made it truly unique.

4E FR wiped out all of the depth from its previous incarnations, and made sure not to offer anything comparable. Short of just saying "I'm sticking with the 3.X campaign setting and ignoring all the 4E changes!" there's nothing unique about FR anymore.