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

[glass]

There's no option for what I think. I like what they're doing, (which is definitely no reboot). If it was a reboot, they'd be going back to the beginning and starting over, as they did with Battlestar Galactica, or they're doing with the upcoming Star Trek movie.

What he said!


glass.

 

[Faraer]

Mystra dying is, IMO, the single best change the Realms will undergo. It doesn't just fix the Times of Trouble mess, it also kills off an overly interventionist deity whose portfolio should always have been hands-off.

In fact, there are almost no instances of Mystra directly acting in Faerûn.

With the recent popularity of many 'old school' revivals such as OSRIC, C&C, and BFRPG, I suspect WotC has realized that once alienated fans compose an not insignificant portion of the purchasing demographic and that they can bring those folks back into the fold (at least temporarily) by undoing a lot of what drove them away in the first place.

There's no sign that Wizards plans to give up the RSEs, though.

. . . dispensed with old gods who were deemed to violent or amoral, introduced new gods who were 'bad' but signifcantly scaled back on 'evil' . . .

That explanation sounds plausible, but I never heard it before. Do you have a source?

But did this change the overall feel of the Realms as a setting about the struggle between good and evil with good at least mostly winning after a hard fight? Or was that not the feel before?

Folk in the Realms rarely see things in such Manichaean terms -- it's a setting that's basically humanist. Through a good/evil lens, victories of the two are approximately equal, with stalemate more common than major victories in either direction, as the Grand History shows, comparing Faerûn over time.

If we were really getting a reboot, I'd be all for it.

1357 DR. Bane, Bhaal, Leira, and Myrkul. LN Mystra. Sembia left a completely blank slate for DMs to write on. Translated to 4e rules, and with a product program involving the addition of more detail, but no timeline progression, eventually detailing not just Faerun, but all of Aber-Toril -- with Old Gray Box Realmsian flavor, not barely fictionalized history.

I would like that best, too. There are things I value in the 1358–1375 official timeline, such as Elaine Cunningham's contributions and Steven Schend's work on Amn and Tethyr, but there's more that I don't, and I think the Realms of 1357 DR is a much better and more coherent setting than the current timeline.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

In fact, there are almost no instances of Mystra directly acting in Faerûn.

I can recall at least one instance in which Mystra herself came down and kicked the butt of a hydra-like beast attacking one of her temples.

It was in one of the follow-ups to the Cyrinishad series.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

There's no sign that Wizards plans to give up the RSEs, though.

Indeed not. In fact, it seems they're going to knock them up a notch or two.

 

[Banshee16]

I think they'll look like rock stars if this "reboot", or transformation or whatever succeeds. But the problem is, they're risking losing 3 fans for every one they gain. They're gambling that fans will complain, and threaten to leave, but then be so enthused what is done, once the setting is released, that they change their minds and stick with it.

And they're probably also gambling on some fans complaining, but being so addicted/socialized into buying the books that they continue to do so, out of habit, and end up liking, or at least using some of the stuff.

Banshee

 

[Banshee16]

I can recall at least one instance in which Mystra herself came down and kicked the butt of a hydra-like beast attacking one of her temples.

It was in one of the follow-ups to the Cyrinishad series.

And didn't she turn up in the Elminster novels, so Elminster could get....uh....acquainted with her on a more personal level?

Banshee

 

[Faraer]

In answer to the thread question:

Signs are that the 2008 Realms will change significantly in feel and design sensibility. Given this,

If Rich Baker, Bruce Cordell, Rob Heinsoo and the rest of the in-house team can, in a couple of years, create and describe a setting that is anything like as rich as Ed Greenwood had by 1987, after twenty years of organic development through short stories and campaigns, I would be surprised.

I like Ed's world very much, and the work of those who've added to it sympathetically and creatively, from Jeff Grubb to George Krashos; more than the work I've seen of the authors of the 2008 book. So chances are I won't like the 2008 setting as much, myself, even if it's very good in its own right.

I emotionally disengaged from the current timeline over several years, so the events at the back of the Grand History of the Realms aren't as much a shock to me as to some. Some of those events I'm indifferent to. Others -- the destruction of the Weave, a powerful metaphor for the bonds of lore and love in the Realms, and not just the structure of magic but part of the metaphysical fabric of Toril itself -- I don't think much of at all.

If Wizards cease to publish the 14th-century Realms -- leaving the bulk of Ed's huge Realmslore backlog untouched, and many characters (Mirt, Sharanralee . . .) likely dead before their stories were ever told -- I'll be sad, though it will have had a wonderful run, despite my many misgivings with its treatment under Wizards and TSR. While Wizards has the legal right to do this, artistically and morally is another matter.

I will probably buy the 4E setting, and try to read it open-mindedly.

Commercially, given how often this kind of drastic shake-up has failed and how rarely it works -- never, that I recall, in D&D worlds -- it's certainly a big risk. I suspect there may be no short-term way, save an unpredictable sales surge, for Wizards to publish setting sourcebooks that make Hasbro-level profits.

 

[Banshee16]

Based on the (awesome) map in my 3rd edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting it looks like Faerun is twice the size of the United States of America. I'd say about 6.3 million square feet. That's huge! Is Toril known to be larger than Earth?

So do you think that Wizards of the Coast will shrink Faerun a little? :\ Or focus in on only one area of it? Should they? Points of light seems to imply much less globetrotting.

I'm going to preface this argument by saying that I understand I'm reading a logical question, into an inherently illogical/unrealistic situation.

How will the nations of FR exist, people be able to buy stuff, and all that, if it *was* made "points of light"? I mean, if it's points of light, that means that vast stretches of the world are infested with evil, destructive, and unfriendly monsters. That poses problems for farmers, merchants etc. which makes goods harder to come by, economies not function as well, etc. etc. It's compounded if 1st lvl PCs are "heroes"....because if they're "heroes", and heroes are defined as being far better than the norm, how can cities, nations etc. even exist? The world is full of 1st level regulars...commoners, city watchment, farmers, men-at-arms, knights, etc. But if each of them is inferior to a 1st lvl hero, the whole thing comes apart?

This is one aspect of design in 3E and 4E that I don't like....or rather, that I'm not keen on with Eberron 3E at least......that the PCs stand out so much over everyone else. The PCs in a campaign are 4 people. Maybe 5. There are millions of people who would depend on them, thousands of monsters, and they can't be everywhere at once.

I kind of prefer the idea of a world where the PCs are heroes, but they're not the *only* heroes.....where there are competent people all over the place (but still not common), who are doing stuff to protect the locals when the PCs aren't around. FR always felt like this....particularly with having other NPCs around. My only issue with the FR NPCs was the sheer number of them who used to be able to do stuff that no PC could do. 3E did fix that, by giving rules for how many of those NPCs do the extra stuff, thus making sure that they were bound by the same rules as regular PCs were.

Banshee

 

[Banshee16]

In answer to the thread question:

Signs are that the 2008 Realms will change significantly in feel and design sensibility. Given this,

If Rich Baker, Bruce Cordell, Rob Heinsoo and the rest of the in-house team can, in a couple of years, create and describe a setting that is anything like as rich as Ed Greenwood had by 1987, after twenty years of organic development through short stories and campaigns, I would be surprised.

I like Ed's world very much, and the work of those who've added to it sympathetically and creatively, from Jeff Grubb to George Krashos; more than the work I've seen of the authors of the 2008 book. So chances are I won't like the 2008 setting as much, myself, even if it's very good in its own right.

I emotionally disengaged from the current timeline over several years, so the events at the back of the Grand History of the Realms aren't as much a shock to me as to some. Some of those events I'm indifferent to. Others -- the destruction of the Weave, a powerful metaphor for the bonds of lore and love in the Realms, and not just the structure of magic but part of the metaphysical fabric of Toril itself -- I don't think much of at all.

If Wizards cease to publish the 14th-century Realms -- leaving the bulk of Ed's huge Realmslore backlog untouched, and many characters (Mirt, Sharanralee . . .) likely dead before their stories were ever told -- I'll be sad, though it will have had a wonderful run, despite my many misgivings with its treatment under Wizards and TSR. While Wizards has the legal right to do this, artistically and morally is another matter.

I will probably buy the 4E setting, and try to read it open-mindedly.

Commercially, given how often this kind of drastic shake-up has failed and how rarely it works -- never, that I recall, in D&D worlds -- it's certainly a big risk. I suspect there may be no short-term way, save an unpredictable sales surge, for Wizards to publish setting sourcebooks that make Hasbro-level profits.

I'm wondering if the success rate of this kind of product change is similar to the success rate of layoffs? ie. 1/3 of the time it helps, 1/3 of the time it doesn't make a difference, and 1/3 of the time, it makes things worse.

Banshee

 

[Kae'Yoss]

This is one aspect of design in 3E and 4E that I don't like....or rather, that I'm not keen on with Eberron 3E at least......that the PCs stand out so much over everyone else. The PCs in a campaign are 4 people. Maybe 5. There are millions of people who would depend on them, thousands of monsters, and they can't be everywhere at once.

That's one of the things I love about the Now Realms: The heroes aren't the only heroes out there. They won't be the first to climb to level 20. Or 30. Or 50. No matter how powerful they become, chances are that there's several someones that are more powerful than them.

I know many hate that, and want their heroes to save the world and be the greatest fighters and wizards and whatever that ever lived, but I prefer a world where you can't just start doing whatever you want once you hit 12th-level, just because no one else could stop you.