D&D 4E Do you think WotC rebooting Forgotten Realms for 4e would be a good idea?

[freyar]

Yes I am very interested in a simplified REALMS. I got burned out on the REALMS. Now I am waiting with baited breath for the next campain setting book. I mean half of whats being changed I really dont use anyway. So the REALMS are being made smaller, in a sense cool. If what I heard that the next campain setting bookis going to be all fluff I WILL BE REALLY EXCITED. I got tired of regional feats, circle magic, shadow weave, & 3000 gods. I am glad that the REALMS ARE GETTING A HAIRCUT SO TO SPEAK!

I see this argument a lot. The things that don't make sense: there are plenty of other smaller settings, but I don't know of others as detailed as FR (please feel free to tell me if I'm wrong! ). Losing that is, well, bad for my fun. All fluff is wonderful, but I worry if WotC will be able to keep the flavor of the Realms if they're going all points-of-light here.

Also, for those interested, Ed Greenwood has responded to the 4e changes on Candlekeep (down toward the bottom of the page, sorry I don't know how to link a specific post). For convenience, I'll reproduce it here:

Not, it was not my idea.

However, before every scribe or Realms fan everywhere grabs that comment and shouts, “See! They’re ruining the Realms and Ed Greenwood hates what they’re doing!” I would ask everyone to remember that I walked this particular plank back in 1986, when I sold rights to the Realms to TSR, ceding artistic control of the setting.
From that day to this, except when I “get in first” to paint the picture of a person, place, or country in the Realms, I have been watching other people do things I might not have ever thought of, or agreed with, to the Realms, and exploring the consequences.
It’s what we all (“we” being everyone who works on the Realms, from artists who do line drawings for product interiors to Bob and Elaine as novelists to Eric and George as “lore lords”) DO: poke the Realms in various ways and see what happens. That’s what makes the world seem alive, the constant change.
Most humans hate most change. All of us can recall things (the house or neighbourhood or town where we grew up, perhaps) that have changed so much they’re “gone” for us; our remembered thing has been changed too much for us to accept it as the original. This could, yes, happen with the Realms, just as with every other thing. As I said before, we can’t tell yet (yes, that includes me, because I haven’t seen enough of the so-called “new Realms” yet). Yet riding this magnificent horse that gallops in different and often-surprising directions is what I do, and have done for four decades now, two of them in print with TSR and now Wizards.
I’m sticking with the horse for now, because I know it and love it and we’ve ridden far together. Bailing right now, at full gallop, would be painful, and I’d be left behind and never get to see what neat new places it will reach.
With that said, let me say how moved I am by the anger and upset various scribes have shown here in their postings. You care about the Realms so much. Thank you for that.
I understand your hurt. I have felt it too, over and over, down the last twenty years, and believe me I feel it now, as characters get whacked and I face the prospect, that I’ve been fending off with potions of longevity for as long as I could, of others dying of old age before I ever get to really tell their stories.
I see the risk Wizards is taking, and sure hope it pays off. Whatever happens, I intend to go on sharing the Realms with gamers and readers for as long as I last. I am hard at work on future Realms goodies now, and am acutely aware of the Border Kingdoms and the unpublished city of Teziir and other things too long neglected.
If you need to vent, if you want to talk, I’m here (well, not HERE, but reachable via the Lovely Lady Hooded). I’ve been talking with many of you already about what to do in your own campaigns, and would like to remind everyone that playing up to the Year of Blue Fire can take you ten REAL years (or even longer); my home Realms campaign is proof positive of that. So you can have the luxury of not changing anything right now, and watching the 4e Realms unfold in print, before amking any decision. Lore replies here and elsewhere can still provide guidance in the “Lost Years.”
Please remember that although Wizards of the Coast is a business, it is a company staffed by GAMERS. And fiction writers. They care deeply about the products they publish, and would work elsewhere (because there are many, many fields where creative people can get better paid than in gaming) if they didn’t. So, please, ease off on the Evil Empire talk and wait and see what they DO first.
I’ll still be here (I hope; certain editors have promised to murder me messily if I blow certain deadlines :} ) . I still care about the Realms; no matter what happens to it, I brought it into the world and want to be there and see what it does. I hope all of you will, too.
To borrow the words of The Hooded One:
Love to all,
Ed

 

[JVisgaitis]

I like the idea, but I realize I'm probably in the minority. My sole reason for creating Violet Dawn was to gut all of the normal races out of fantasy and make something different. I realize a lot of people like the familiar, but not me. That's why I like the idea of 4e so much.

 

[freyar]

I like the idea, but I realize I'm probably in the minority. My sole reason for creating Violet Dawn was to gut all of the normal races out of fantasy and make something different. I realize a lot of people like the familiar, but not me. That's why I like the idea of 4e so much.

But if you want something different than standard fantasy, why do you want FR to be changed? Can't those of us who want high fantasy in a big setting have that, too? :\

Edit: I don't want to sound snarky or whiny, but I've seen a lot of "Well, I don't like FR, but I'll check it out if it looks totally different." Isn't the default 4e setting already totally different?

 

[Brewhammer]

I do not see the logic in changing a setting so radically that it antagonises a lot of the fans, in order to bring in people who disliked the Realms in the past. Are those people likely to stick with it?

Exactly. Yet this is the same thing comic book companies do and it rarely works. They'll "shake up" or "reimagine" a title or character, drastically change it - and expect that they'll gain more new readers than they lose old readers. The result is a price spike for a new #1 issue then the interest wanes and suddenly they're left with fewer readers than they had before. Marvel and DC both do it, and most of the time it fails - though there are exceptions.

This is the same gamble WotC is taking now - that by "shaking things up" and "reimagining" FR they will gain new FR fans. But they are not as likely to stay with FR as long as long as many of its longtime fans have stuck with it - twenty years.

 

[Davelozzi]

I don't mind the idea of a clean-up, and at first was intrigued, however I do not particuarly like the ideas I have seen so far in the prelude to The Orc King and in the preview of A Grand History of the Realms.

 

[dpmcalister]

I won't be playing 4e or LFR so a reboot doesn't bother me I'm happy with my 2nd Edition boxed set combined with the 3e book

 

[Tharkun]

I'm not a fan of FR, though if a reboot was done I would consider looking at the book (I may even buy it if Elminster is killed off). I would be happy then.

 

[rounser]

To point out the obvious - if you don't like the changes, you can always wind back the clock.

FR2 Moonshae is set before the time period described in the grey box, maybe run with that. Could even go back to Netheril if you wanted to.

 

[Moonshade]

But if you want something different than standard fantasy, why do you want FR to be changed? Can't those of us who want high fantasy in a big setting have that, too? :\

Edit: I don't want to sound snarky or whiny, but I've seen a lot of "Well, I don't like FR, but I'll check it out if it looks totally different." Isn't the default 4e setting already totally different?

That's basically how I feel, too. I liked FR's kind of high fantasy and my FR DMs never had a campaign crash because they felt they had to have Elminster appear and solve the problem for the PCs. But on other boards I've run into an unfortunate amount of glee over the fact that FR might become low-magic POL since only simpleminded powergamers can have liked the pre-4E versions. That attitude puts me on the defensive.

I don't think there should be no 4E changes at all. I just want the prosperous cities, plotting power groups and high fantasy feel to stay. If a 100 years reboot kept that flavour of the setting I'd be okay with it. If it led to the hopeless post-apocalyptic mess described in Salvatore's The Orc King excerpt, I wouldn't be interested in 4E FR.

 

[Minicol]

I think it would be optimal that if you make a new edition of the game, have a fresh and new campaign setting or settings for it. Retire greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, and Eberron. They are all designed and balanced for earlier editions. Keep them there.

Yes. that moves makes no sense to me. It looks CHEAP !

Either you write something that goes well with your new ideas, or if you update old material, you can at the very least have some decency towards it and some respect for the fan base.

If people did not like the realms before, why would they now ? On the other hand, those who liked them have fewer and fewer reasons to buy.

Maybe it's because they have been so focused during 3.X in wrtiting rules supplement, and they do not know how to write adventures and settings anymore ? Looking at the few I have seen recently this may be the case : a random succession of battlemaps for minis is not an adventure.

Ah, the good news is now I will be able to actually save a lot more money for my video g... (whack !)er no, for the shopping trips of my girlfriend.