D&D 5E Forgotten Realms - How would you publish this setting this time?

[Blackwarder]

Personally, I think purging the Realms of the powerful NPCs would actually hurt some of the charm of the setting. As a collection of maps and lore, I don't think the setting is all that special. The many conflicting personalities and the feel of the Realms as a living world is one of the things that drove it to high levels of success while other settings faltered.

I think the big thing to avoid is having the novels radically change the setting. The novels as part of canon aren't a bad thing, but players and DMs shouldn't be hamstrung by them. If WotC wants to put out a novel that pits Elminster against some uber big bad (say like Elminster in Hell, but with much less suck involved), that's fine. But don't have the consequences radically revise the whole world. That way, if DMs want to use elements of that story, they can, but they aren't forced to do so.

As to a massive retcon, the problem with hitting the reset button is that you're going to have some people vocally displeased no matter what. You can say "restart everything at the gray box," but that voids a lot of lore that was actually pretty good. The Time of Troubles, for example, was a horrendous event but brought out elements that many people like, including wild magic and the Baldur's Gate video games that many people like to work into canon in their Realms. That's also not to mention that just resetting everything to the gray box seems like a wate to me - if you want to play things like that, why not just get the gray box and say, "this is the point we're playing from"?

That said, the 4th edition Realms was unpopular enough that it's probably the one place I could see a retcon working from. It's not that the 4th edition Realms were bad, but they took gamers so far away from the people and places that defined the Realms that it might be a good idea to go back. Jumping the timeline 5 to 10 years ahead is one thing. Jumping it 100 years ahead and changing the basic physics of the world is another.

Overall, WotC seems to be setting the Sundering up as something akin to the New 52 in DC comics, where we're going to have elements from the past smashed into a post-Spellplague Realms. Maybe that will work well, but I get the bad feeling that it will probably be more confusing than any other option. Hopefully, that won't be the case and the Realms can go back to what made it such a strong setting in the first place.

QFT.

One of the charms of FR is it vast canvas of lore and depth added over the decades, me and my players have no problem with all the characters in the novels playing a role in the realms and in our games the exist and wonder around the world doing their own things, the realms is bg enough for both the characters and the NPCs to coexists without stepping on each other toes.

Warder

 

[the Jester]

QFT.

One of the charms of FR is it vast canvas of lore and depth added over the decades, me and my players have no problem with all the characters in the novels playing a role in the realms and in our games the exist and wonder around the world doing their own things, the realms is bg enough for both the characters and the NPCs to coexists without stepping on each other toes.

Warder

Fair enough, but that same giant mountain of lore intimidates and drives away some people. Any dm who has had to deal with the "But in FR novel x, it says..." phenomenon- and there are enough complaints about it on the boards that it obviously does happen to some people- probably wishes that all that novel stuff wasn't canon.

But different strokes for different folks and all that. I'm fine with the lore, what I don't like is the long-established tradition of FR pcs being secondary to FR npcs in the "big picture"- for God's sake, the Avatar trilogy had the pcs as, essentially, an audience for Elminster! Ugh, talk about terrible!

 

[YRUSirius]

DMs just need to have the EXPLICIT permission to dismiss any notion of canon if they want to.

Heck, Ed Greenwood himself said in the OGB that the DM has every right to make this setting his own. Every setting box after it repeated this aswell.

People just need to learn to finally respect that. It's the DMs World. Basta. End of story. Period.

-YRUSirius

 

[an_idol_mind]

Fair enough, but that same giant mountain of lore intimidates and drives away some people.

I kinda see this criticism as akin to saying, "The hostile desert setting drives some people away from Dark Sun."

I think the Realms is one of those settings where the mountains of lore are the big appeal. If you want a quasi-medieval fantasy setting without all that lore, there are many other options available.

(Note #1: I say this as somebody who hasn't played in the Realms for about 15 years - not because I don't like the lore but rather because I enjoy building my own setting much more.)

(Note #2: While I think the appeal is the huge amount of lore, WotC might decide that said appeal isn't getting them the customers they need, which seems to be their reasoning when they released the 4th edition Realms. The problem is that they need to clearly define what the new appeal of the setting will be and not pretend that they can recruit the same fanbase with a radically changed setting.)

Any dm who has had to deal with the "But in FR novel x, it says..." phenomenon- and there are enough complaints about it on the boards that it obviously does happen to some people- probably wishes that all that novel stuff wasn't canon.

I'm personally of the belief that this is more of a player problem than anything else. Any setting that has a large canon is going to get folks like this, be it the Realms or Greyhawk or Golarion or even lesser-played settings like Birthright.

for God's sake, the Avatar trilogy had the pcs as, essentially, an audience for Elminster! Ugh, talk about terrible!

I think the Avatar Triology modules are among the worst adventures ever (as described in my zillion part series over here). However, painting those horrible modules as definitive of the Realms is like saying that the terrible Castle Greyhawk module defines the Greyhawk setting.

I think the big issue with the Realms is one of quality control. The 2nd edition products were largely a mixed bag, and the poor ones became notorious for how terrible they were. Most of the 3rd edition stuff was very bland, and the 4th edition stuff lacked a real direction. If WotC chooses what they want the Realms to be, sticks to their goals, and makes quality a top priority, I think they'll do fine.

 

[TwoSix]

... except for a functional map.

The map really was crap which reduced the utility of the setting. I actually like the 4E version of FR and run it, but I generally run games in areas where other maps have been produced because the ones in the FRCG are just crap.

Out of curiousity, what was wrong with the 4e FRCS map? I have the book, but I admit to not paying that much attention to the map.

 

[Obryn]

Didn't the 3e FR map remove a few countries to get it to fit on a 2-page spread?

-O

 

[the Jester]

Didn't the 3e FR map remove a few countries to get it to fit on a 2-page spread?

-O

It tweaked the geography. I don't know about removing countries, but IIRC it completely resized some desert and arctic regions to squish stuff closer together or something.

 

[variant]

DMs just need to have the EXPLICIT permission to dismiss any notion of canon if they want to.

Heck, Ed Greenwood himself said in the OGB that the DM has every right to make this setting his own. Every setting box after it repeated this aswell.

People just need to learn to finally respect that. It's the DMs World. Basta. End of story. Period.

-YRUSirius

If I have to modify a setting wholesale to be able to use it, might as well just create my own.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

Out of curiousity, what was wrong with the 4e FRCS map? I have the book, but I admit to not paying that much attention to the map.

- Many places were located incorrectly.
- Too little detail... and what detail there was was often in the wrong place according to the text or simply wasn't shown.
- The colour palette chosen matched the contents of my son's nappy/diaper when he was roughly 4 months. (Seriously. He went through this horrid black and olive green stage... and I kept noticing how much it looked like the 4E map.)

 

[YRUSirius]

If I have to modify a setting wholesale to be able to use it, might as well just create my own.

There is a small difference between making a setting your own (by ignoring stuff) and creating your own setting (by writing all of it on your own), non?

-YRUSirius