Faraer said:
woodelf, you never liked the Realms but you loved the Realms background in "Pages from the Mages" and "Arcane Lore"?
I loved Pages from the Mages because it gave me a spellbook with ab ackstory, and sometimes a character. I never found those particularly "Realmsian", unlike a lot of other Greenwood articles. I could easily slot one of those spellbooks in, drop the associated mage into my settings history somewhere, changing a few names or locations as needed, and i was all set. IIRC, most of the wizards depicted in Pages from the Mages were real bit-players in the Realms, and not tied all that specifically into Forgotten Realms stuff--not like the Symbul or Elminster or Thay. So, in short, it was isolated enough that it wasn't "Realms background" to me, it was just "background". Not entirely certain why i didn't find de-Realms-ing other articles harder and/or less satisfying.
As for Arcane Lore--i don't remember any of those being explicitly Forgotten Realms. They came from all different writers, and implied all sorts of different backgrounds. Used a couple in their entirety (working the wizard into the campaign history in some minor way), used a lot for just one spell here or there. I always liked to give PC wizards the feel of a tradition of apprenticeship and closely-guarded secrets, so i'd rated all spells as common, uncommon, or rare, and would give them mostly common spells to start with, but also a couple of uncommon and rare ones, usually including at least one or two spells the players (collectively) had never heard of--usually culled from something like Arcane Lore.
[just was rereading the very first Arcane Lore, and i'm entertained by the fact that it specifically says that they will sort out spells and print them in various groups as appropriate (i.e., themed), so don't count on seeing all your spells in one group; send no more than six spells per submission; and don't include magic items unless "closely tied" to the spells. That first column is credited to one author, and has 8 spells and a magic item.]
