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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Faraer" data-source="post: 4847210" data-attributes="member: 6318">They almost never appear in Realms scenarios; on the contrary, it's always been indicated, for instance, that by default, PCs who knock on Elminster's door will usually find he's just not in (he spends much/most of his time walking other worlds). Still, there's the play guidelines in The Seven Sisters, <a href="http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rl/20040609a" target="_blank">"Realmslore: Storm Silverhand's Quieter Days"</a>, and the scenarios in Spellbound. Elminster's principal role in Realmslore is not as any kind of NPC but as an unreliable narrator, one of several devices intended to further assure DMs that their campaigns needn't match published lore. On the other hand, in the short stories (and vignettes in Elminster in Hell) Elminster is used in, the other characters clearly 'matter' very much -- indeed, one of the hallmarks of the Realms is a kind of humanistic egalitarianism in which common folk are quite as important as the bold and the mighty.Your disproportionate focus on this handful of characters is understandable because TSR and Wizards have encouraged it, but that's not the same as the world of Toril.I think the roleplaying-over-rules intrigue-heavy style is a perfectly fine one.(Edit: Just as it's a valid preference to use highly detailed worlds, snide 'continuity porn' accusations notwithstanding).The basic structure of Ed's campaign is a layered web of rumours (the 'current clack' which was such a notable feature of pre-3E Realms sourcebooks and articles, like the month-by-month run-down of 1356 and 1357 DR in the Old Grey Box) and closer-to intrigue from which the players take up the things that grab them: everything from trials (as in an old Dragon article on law in D&D) to dungeon-delving (for specific PC-chosen reasons rather than general exploration) to training apprentices or maintaining individual investments in distant cities. There's one particularly evocative post where Ed laid out a typical (actually simplified) set of situations and hooks from one point in the Knights campaign, but I'm having trouble digging it out.</blockquote>

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