D&D 4E FR 4E SPOILER - Grand Histoy of the Realms info

[Simia Saturnalia]

You do realize that some of us actually like the novels?

I hear some people like Tolkien's writing, too.

De gustibus, etc.

 

[Perun]

Yep. Totally unrealistic....

World War I - 1914 to 1918

World War II - 1937 (or, arguably 1939) to 1945

Yes, except the WWs are more like the Horde invasion of the Faerun... and nobody really remembers that.

And while the World Wars (and WWII in particular) were catastrophic examples of human stupidity, they were not, in the strictest sense, world-shattering.

ToT and Spellplague are, because both change the way in which the very world operates.

Regards.

 

[Keldryn]

Sounds like Marvin the Martian just hit the Realms with an Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator.

(It was blocking his view of Venus)

I was a big fan of the Realms in the days of the old Grey Box, when it was fresh and new and not obsessively detailed and clutterd. At some point during 2E I grew very disillusioned with the whole setting, mainly due to having bought too many supplement and reading too many amateurish novels (and a handful of good ones). It became too much to keep up with, and the setting was accumulating more and more things that I needed to change in order to run my games the way that I wanted to. I realize that nobody was stopping me from picking up a new copy of the Grey Box and running with just that, but it's hard to mentally filter out all of the other stuff that I know that was published later.

After 20 years of a constantly evolving timeline, the Realms could use a good reset so that things can start fresh. Hopefully they'll follow Eberron's lead and any new novels will not be integrated into the timeline of the setting every few years.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

What WotC needed to do was find a way to break with that in such a way that it's interesting enough to draw in new fans and those who avoided the setting before, but keep enough that most of the hardcore fans are intrigued and want to buy into the changes (at least enough to try them). I think this fits the bill in the sort of thing they needed to do.

Seems like they failed.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

It may be an artifact of me starting out in 2e, but I always thought it was interesting to have a Good-aligned deity of magic. It broke the pattern of every other single D&D pantheon I've seen, where the deity of magic is constrained to be LN or N...

The Realms broke the pattern with many things. It seems they are going to take care of that, though.

Finally, I'm a bit stumped by others here complaining about retconning.

I think it worked quite well for 3e. From what we know about 4e, I think it could work equally well for 4e. And the instances where a wizard in a novel thought about how he didn't prepare this or that spell today were quite rare, anyway.

You could switch to the new scheme without batting an eye.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

But honestly, I'd love for the timeline to be advanced 500-900 years, so as to allow a "starting over".

The thing is, though, why not create a whole new setting if you want to do that?

I can see it now.. Forgotten Realms: THE NEXT GENERATION!

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I will wait to see just how much of a car wreck all this is, but as it stands right now, they driven my favorite setting into the ditch.

Don't get your hopes up. After "The old world is dead, the new world starts", it can't be that good.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Seriously, it's a setting, and they're making that setting have less chaff. I am in favor of this. I'm not a grognard and have little invested in The Way Things Ought To Be^tm, so a change that makes the setting more fun is a good one.

The thing is, ripping apart the setting so it doesn't resemble what it's supposed to be isn't fun. It's not the setting we like.

Who cares if they kill off Mystra, or any of the other gods.

I do, and so do many others

Gods are some of the least interesting elements of storytelling.

An opinion not shared by everyone.

 

[Glyfair]

Seems like they failed.

Looking at the reaction, I'm not so certain.

Sure, there are a number of "Wotc is evil, I'm leaving the setting, they ruined my life" type posts (along with a fewer number of "eh, not interested in the changes" posts). However, you expect that most people with that reaction will post something.

There are quite a few posts that make it clear a lot of fans are interested. I've seen quite a few "What in the world are they doing? This is a big mess. However, I'm intrigued" posts. There are a lot of "wow, I like this a lot" posts. There are also a some of "wow, I might get back into FR again" threads. You expect that this is a smaller fraction of the people that feel that way (they don't feel the urge to vent their feelings).

Time will tell, but I think this might do exactly what they want. The devil is in the details, of course.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Don't worry Mean Eyed Cat. I fully intend to purchase the Grand History. Been looking forward to it for a while. Thanks for bringing us the info, I just wish it was info I could be happy about.

It will do a good job of finalising the Realms - the decent part before everything is tossed into the garbage can. Since the "old world" (read: real Realms) are dead by the end of the book, it's the definite and final source for Realmslore.

It's a real shame WoTC felt like killing off the setting to start anew. Why they couldn't just make a new setting, rather then killing off one that's loved by many, many people I don't know.

They did. They just don't have the balls to admit it. They like to fool some of the old fans into buying it by slapping the FR sticker on it.

They should have gone ahead and said that they're ditching the Realms and do something new.