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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ruleslawyer" data-source="post: 3827814" data-attributes="member: 1757">To the OP: You may want to split off some of the other topics for discussion, since I feel like there's a lot more to your post than just the Realms.As to the "too many high-level NPCs": I agree that FR has too many of them. However, I also think that it's very relevant to the issue that seems to get discussed all the time: Namely, the role of the Chosen of Mystra as "Mary Sue NPCs". I'm afraid I don't agree with this. Game materials are game materials, and novels are novels. Unless events portrayed in novels bleed over into game materials (which, sadly, they do all the time), I don't think that DMs and players need to pay attention to anything in them for the purposes of the game. I don't care if the Simbul destroys five hundred Red Wizards of Thay and sixty-five beholders in some novel; it doesn't say "d20" on the cover, so it don't apply to my game.That said, Ed did have an unfortunate tendency to liberally sprinkle high-level NPCs into the supplements, particularly in later 2e materials. If you take the figures in the Volo's Guides, the Menzoberranzan boxed set, and some other materials literally, there can be hundreds if not thousands of epic-level spellcasters in relatively small regions of Faerun. One of the best things that WotC did in 3e was to trim down these numbers somewhat, and they could go further. But I don't see the Chosen as part of that problem. There are a grand total of eight of them (plus one dead, and yes, I'd prefer her as a powerless, advice-giving spirit rather than a silver weredragon ghost archmage or whatever they're making her these days), and they all have very, very big fish to fry. Elminster isn't Superman; he can't hover in orbit with super-hearing and swoop down at Mach 10 to save children from being run over by dung-carts, pull kittens out of trees, or what have you. More likely he's off wandering the planes, dealing with malaugrym and phaerimm and all sorts of other nasty things, and so on. Likewise for the others (and Dove, Qilue, and Storm are hardly at world-shaking power level anyway): Alustriel is busy attempting to hold together a federation in the most dangerous corner of Faerun; the Simbul has to contend with eight evil archmages and a host of lesser wizards; and Laeral is busy running Waterdeep, gathering intelligence in Undermountain and Skullport (which is in itself home to a number of nasties) and probably mopping up after the disaster that befell the Nine. The real outliers are Khelben and Elminster, who are powerful enough and motivated enough to "save the world" if need be. However, the fact that they're around also serves to explain in part why Faerun hasn't already fallen apart in the face of all these monsters, evil secret societies, and godly meddlings. In short, I agree entirely that the novels and the simple fact of these NPCs being pushed front and center in WotC's Realms marketing can lead players to the assumption that they can do anything and the PCs aren't really needed for "save the world" type adventures. (Which, incidentally, aren't what Ed built the Realms for anyway; he seems to prefer S&S-type narratives with more localized, morally-ambiguous plots involving thefts, battles against hidden cults, and the like to monolithic LotR-style conflicts.) However, I have yet to see an actual campaign that shoves the PCs to the sidelines.</blockquote>

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