Forgotten Realms "Gray Box": the path to redemption?

[vini_lessa]

Hi there,

Ive never liked Forgotten Realms. It always seemed to me a mish-mash of "probably anything the author found cool when was a teen" shaken up and thrown in a map. Never saw anything in there that myself (or any other folk) couldnt come up with given only time and willing to do so.

That said..

Recently, a colleague told me about a fabled "1st edition Gray Box" and how the setting was much less convoluted and much more "pristine" by then. And the more important - that there was a "vision" that somehow justifyed the setting absurdities (that Faerun was, in fact, a kind of planar crossroads or something, and even was linked though portals to our Earth. What I, as a Planescape fan, perceived as "proto-planescape" or something. It seems this "vision" was purposefully downplayed in the following editions ?). Further, this pal said by then there wasnt the big metagame with uber-NPCs running around and cataclisms happening yearly. (exageration, of course).

So, could this fable "Gray Box" redeem the setting to me?

Thanks!


(just so you know where I come from, my references in fantasy settings are Glorantha, Tekumel, Jorune and Planescape - this one more conceptually than in its implemented form, but this is talk for another time. ).

 

[samursus]

First off, welcome to ENWorld!

Secondly, although I myself have only dabbled in FR of any edition, from what I have read from others is that the Gray Box, may have that redeeming effect for you. It was before the novels (which are the greatest influences on the game for the last decade or so) and doesn't have the huge amount of lore yet.

In the same vein, you may also like the 4e take on FR, where they jumped forward 100 years, rebooted the world with a cataclysmic event and hence did away with many of the high-level NPC's that the setting had been known for. This also had the effect of allowing them to include the new races and rules concepts into the game as well as creating a Points Of Light flavour into, what had previously been, a relatively detailed and civilized world.

 

[DragonLancer]

I have to agree with the OP. I started FR with 2nd edition but using the old gray box. The setting was far more interesting and less "everything in one box" feel. Those were the days.

 

[Mercurius]

Hmm...I'm of two minds, here. On one hand, the gray box had a more distinct atmosphere because it was (almost) entirely the creation of Ed Greenwood, so it is the most "Greenwoodian" of Realms iterations. On the other hand, it still included real world analogs like Chessenta (Ancient Greece), Unther (Mesopotamia), and Mulhorrand (Egypt), so was still very much a kitchen sink setting.

Given your personal tastes, you might not like the Realms in any iteration so much - it is a "vanilla" D&D setting closer to Greyhawk and Golarion than Tekumel and Jorune.

As for this "vision" you speak of, I don't remember that at all.

Overall my guess is that the Realms in any version won't be your bag, but you still might appreciate it for what it is, a well-done vanilla D&D fantasy, with a distinct "Greenwoodian" vibe. It has a kind of cozy, familiar feeling, probably because it is "campaign grown" rather than "product grown." That is, like Greyhawk, it was the outcome of a living campaign and thus many of the NPCs were actual PCs in Greenwood's own campaign. It has less of a slick product feel, made-for-consumption, like Dragonlance or Eberron (both of which I like, btw, but don't have the same homebrew quality).

 

[Wik]

If I recall correctly, that whole "vision" concept comes from the idea that the Realms got their name from the fact that there were once occasional portals from Faerun to Earth, and that Earth had all but "forgotten" these distant realms. Really, though, there was no in-play or in-game mechanics for contact between the worlds.

That being said, Ed Greenwood had a long series in Dragon magazine where Elminster would travel to Earth, talk to Ed about random stuff (usually while drinking pop and pigging out on junk food), and then there would be some game stat stuff.

 

[ashockney]

I started my first, and one of my biggest, campaigns on that grey box.

I often reflect on what made that such a magical experience.

On the one hand, there is the "you can never go back" effect. There was nothing quite this comprehensive, and yet, quite so specific on how to succeed when it was published.

Here are a few reflections on what this did really well.
1) It put the magic at the heart of the setting. It was special, and treated with reverence.
2) Monsters were scary and unexpected, heavy on aberrations, beholders and mind flayers. Dragons, having been pushed around, were given a six inch needle of adrenaline right to the heart.
3) Villians were extremely powerful, ever-present, and threatening.
4) Hooks to guide an adventure were prevalent, cram-packed on every page.
5) Finally, there was a relevent versimilitude that operated independently in the background. It eventually got out of control through novels, and expansions, but in the beginning, it was interesting and compelling to not be in this "alone" in this complex and overwhelming world full of adventure.

 

[pawsplay]

Recently, a colleague told me about a fabled "1st edition Gray Box" and how the setting was much less convoluted and much more "pristine" by then. And the more important - that there was a "vision" that somehow justifyed the setting absurdities (that Faerun was, in fact, a kind of planar crossroads or something, and even was linked though portals to our Earth. What I, as a Planescape fan, perceived as "proto-planescape" or something. It seems this "vision" was purposefully downplayed in the following editions ?). Further, this pal said by then there wasnt the big metagame with uber-NPCs running around and cataclisms happening yearly. (exageration, of course).

Not only was the interplanar aspect downplayed, but the FR were given a completely closed cosmology, apart from some shout-outs to deities who may have some some of theoretical back door to other worlds. People who die in the FR, as of 3e, were the absolute property of their deity, and those without deities were sucked into the Wall of Souls; it makes you wonder what force could have such a hold on people's immortals souls, if mortals were capable of stepping through a portal and visiting another realm.

 

[vini_lessa]

Thanks for the info, folks. Ill try to acquire the PDF. If I like it, I think ill hunt ebay for it.

I was attracted to the realms by the pc game Baldurs Gate 2*. It had an amazing history and atmosphere, and I got instantaneously hooked to the setting. Then I bought the 3rd edition book and got somewhat disappointed - too much info cluttered on all sides of the map; a confusing (and uninteresting) timeline; copy-and-pasted earth cultures. I sold the book almost imediately. But now Im on a vibe for "classic" fantasy settings, got curious by my coleagues´ description of the "grey box" and... here I am.

*the same with Planescape - I came to know the setting through the (amazing) pc game "Planescape: Torment". But, in this case, when a got the campaign setting box in my hands, I actually liked it pretty much.

Thank you all for the help. By the way, i think this passage may be the one that suggested the "vision"..

From "DM's Sorcebook of the the Realms", Old Grey Box.

The Forgotten Realms derive their name from the fictitious fact upon which play in my campaign is based: that a multiverse exists, of countless parallel co-existing Prime Material Planes (including the world presented herein, our own modern Earth, and any other fantasy settings a DM may wish to incorporate in play), all related to the Known Planes of Existence presented in the AD&D system.

Travel between these planes was once far more common than is the case now (when few know the means of reaching other worlds, or even believe in the existence of such fanciful places); hence, the Realms have been forgotten by beings of Earth. Our legends of dragons, vampires, and of other fearsome creatures and magic are due to this formerly widespread contact between the worlds; most have of course become confused and distorted with the passage of time and many retellings. That corner of the Realms presented herein is a strip of the heart of the western part of only one continent of Toril, that region known as Faerun (pronounced FAY-er-OON; the name meant home in a now-lost early human tongue). Much more awaits the traveler, to be revealed in later works.

 

[rounser]

I was attracted to the realms by the pc game Baldurs Gate 2*.

Bioware was an amazing company, and responsible for BG2. They took the cream of 2E and FR and turned it into something special.

Because it's a computer game they have to be specific about details, and realise the realms in full colour. They also probably had a much bigger budget than WOTC had with the FRCS, and were able to use millions of lines of code rather than a strictly limited page count. WOTC and TSR approach FR from completely a different direction by comparison (limited page count + way way way too much scope = stone soup compared to your average CRPG, which can be good if you want to fill in the details I suppose...).

The way around this, IMO, is to restrict scope similarly to the way Bioware did (i.e. one big city and it's immediate surrounds in both BG1 and BG2). To get up on my soapbox, the oft-overlooked aspect of using an entire world as a setting is that you're sacrificing quality for quantity. There are various mercantile reasons (and perhaps reasons of tabletop tradition) why WOTC cannot produce a 320 page book for something the size of, say, Thunder Rift (which is about the size of Bioware's scope with the BG games), which is why the support you're hinting at does not exist. Something that size gets 32 pages spent on it.

(FR flavour is marvellous IMO, but if you don't like it and want a campaign setting that's standalone, Bioware game size, has all D&D's classic cliches intact and stops the PCs wandering "off the map", I'd recommend Thunder Rift.)

What's the answer, if you want to replicate a Bioware-like experience with tabletop? Condense all the colour and adventure from an entire world into a few tens of miles (e.g. Bioware raided arguably some of the best of 2E's incredible Encyclopedia Magica for their magic items, and that's over a 1000 pages of them), set up hundreds of optional mini-quests, and tie that in to an over-riding campaign arc divided into three acts.

That's an incredible amount of work, but it's arguably much more useful than spreading yourself across a wide area (i.e. what most people talk about when they think of settings). In fact, FR originally effectively got played as a series of little mini-settings (Eveningstar + Haunted Halls, Shadowdale + Myth Drannor, Waterdeep + Undermountain), so if you're looking at FR in particular check those out. And remember that the key to replicating something as good as these CRPGs is to restrict campaign scope.

And even if you do all that, IMO there's one more "gotcha"....

I wouldn't recommend any WOTC edition of D&D for this style of campaign.

Why? Because the rate of advancement and the length of a single combat in both 3E and 4E, when played on the tabletop, just takes too long and players level too fast. IMO this is pure poison for the epic kind of campaign BG2 represents, because you simply can't run enough adventures in the time and levels available. You could monkey with the experience tables to solve the levelling too fast problem, but single combats will still drag outrageously in a way that previous editions just didn't. So I'd recommend AD&D 1E, 2E, or BECMI (or some similacrum thereof) for this style of campaign. Ed Greenwood himself stayed with 2E for his home games, apparently.

 

[kitsune9]

Ashockney has described my experience with the 1st ed FR. The gray box FR set did paint the Realms as a crossroads to other realms hence the influence of all the nations being a mish-mash.