[FR] Campaign Setting interpretation diatribe

[jester47]

Re: Re: Re: [FR] Campaign Setting interpretation diatribe

while I respect everyone else's right to play their game as they wish, I have noticed a general trend on the boards that it is somehow cool to bash those who enjoy high-magic, high-level, and high-fantasy.

...snip it...

What I mean is that, while according to the core rules D&D can be played many different ways, the standard for advancement and rewards facilitates a more magic heavy, flashy style of high-fantasy game.

Therefore to play a more gritty, low-power, low-magic game is to belong to the elite,...

...snip it good...

I think my point is that I find the setting to be a gritty, high-magic (meaning lots of magic of different power levels), Multi level Swords and Sorcery (low fantasy).

Adding this bit in an edit:

Submitted for your approval:

You are at a table eating an orange. Your friend comes up to you and says "you know you should stop eating that and try eating an orange, they taste so much better."

Thats how I feel when people call the realms high fantasy.

Aaron.

 

[jester47]

And that's what I can't put my finger on: I like a lot of ideas in FR, but there is something about it that makes the whole less appealing than its various parts. I like a concept from FR, but I don't want to use the setting that it originated from.

I know what you are talking about. I sense it too. somthing does not mesh. Somthing is not clicking. And I think I know what it is now. I think it is the politics. There are huge stateless areas. There are few borders in the forgotten realms. And I think that messes with a lot of people. We live in a world that is divided into States, nations, provinces, counties, shires, and what not. There is only one place in out world that is unspoken for: Antarctica. So when the realms show up with Orgs that control regions in one place but have networks everywhere else, vast streaches of land untended and unclaimed, I think it throws us off. We are not prepared for that. And so nothing seems to have its place.

When you think of it as a sort of city state/nation-state/frontier hodgepodge then things start to work. you realise that organisations are "international." It seems to me that people in the realms are not into control of teritory but rather control of specific places or regular events (like trade). Once I realised that, things started to fall into place. It makes sense for D&D. And furher investigation of Cormyr indicates that they only control the cities and roads, everything else is just claimed by Cormyr.

Hope that helps.

Aaron.

 

[Desdichado]

I can relate to the thought the the Realms is somehow less than the sum of it's parts -- the Realms has tons of great ideas, but like -- who was it, Quinn? (are you the same Quinn who used to post on the Astralwizard's mailing list, by the way?) -- I find I'd much rather borrow them and adapt them into my own setting rather than use them in the Realms per se.

Part of that is fact that inventing homebrews is at least half the fun of DMing for me, so I almost always want to borrow for a homebrew rather than use outright, but some settings, like Planescape and Iron Kingdoms (and possibly Kalamar), I probably could use "out of the box."

And to cptg1481 -- I don't think dismissing those who prefer low magic games by painting us all as elitist snobs of some kind really helps your case any. In my experience, there are more Realms fans than not on these boards, although the Realms detractors are certainly vocal and often quite harsh.

Me personally? I don't mind the Realms. I've played a few pretty good games in them in my time. I'm not a particular fan of the novels, but then again, I haven't read a lot of them either. I'm not a huge fan of the presentation of the Realms in the past, but the 3e book is very well done -- a real benchmark for how to present a setting.

I could play in the Realms again the way jester47 describes it. That I'd enjoy. Otherwise, though, it just doesn't interest me nearly as much as half a dozen other options I could think of off the top of my head.

 

[Darrin Drader]

I have mixed feelings on the realms, and not for the same reasons everyone else does.

I started playing the realms with the original grey box 15 or so years ago. At the time I thought it extremely cool, new, well defined. The setting supplements were good, and it was enough to fuel about 6 years worth of campaigns. Finally I had my own ideas and moved the game into my own world. I continued to develop that world for quite some time, and over a few separate campaigns. It was never that I didn't like the realms, it was simply that I was more or less bored with them and the typical conflicts that I had been introduced to so long ago still playing themselves out.

Now I'm 2 games into a new group and this time I made the decision that I wasn't going to generate all the material myself. Yep, that's right, the master plan is to run modules and make them fit together, starting with The Tomb of Abysthor by Necromancer Games. When deciding where to set it, I considered the Scarred Lands, as they're kind of the flavor of the moment, I considered Greyhawk, and I considered the realms. I ultimately chose the realms because of a few factors. (1) I am very familliar with the setting, so I can toss in intrigue with very little effort. (2) I like the way the power structure is set up. There are powerful PC's who have their hands full keeping things in check, but realistically, Elminster isn't going to be able to solve every problem. He doesn't have the time or the resources to micromanage everything, and the fact that he is an extremely powerful character simply means that the PC's might be able to find a powerful ally should they need one. (3) With the size and scope of the realms, I was able to take a city and the surrounding territory and make it my own. Sure, you can do this with any setting, but I rather like being able to do this a stone's throw away from Waterdeep (which happens to be my favorite fantasy city of all time). (4) There is a lot of support material available for it, so if I do want the campaign to strike out in a new area, I'm able to do that easily.

By the way, I started reading Salvatore's novels when I was in highschool, and have more or less followed them ever since. I like Drizzt as a character, but my major gripe is that he more or less outgrew the group he was with. The original trilogy presented some stereotypical, but very fun characters, and I would have liked to follow each of them a bit more than Salvatore has done. Speaking of Salvatore, I had the opportunity to meet him at a book signing about four years ago, and you will never meet a nicer, less pretencious author. With all the other publishing opportunities he has (Demon Wars Saga, Star Wars (episode II, Vector Prime, hopefully more), and the inevitable doors that those successes have opened up, we are lucky (LUCKY!) to still have him writing D&D books.

 

[Celtavian]

Re

Good to hear others enjoy the Realms. Some folks have bashed the Realms constantly, and I cannot understand why save to think they took the time to read the novels.

The novels make the Realms appear more like superhero comics or bad pulp novels than any of the actual Source material. That could be why the Realms has such a bad reputation.

Personally, I enjoy the Realms. They have taken snippets of historical human civilizations and blended them with magic to create a rich, detailed, fantastic world with its own mythology and feel.

It is one of the few worlds to take into account how much magic would change the historical development of the world. If magic truly existed, it would be like the discovery of electricity in our own world.

Magic would shape the technological development of the world in ways that many campaign worlds fail to develop. The Realms truly develops this idea with prevalent magic shops and magic items that make life easier such as Travel Cloaks and magical water distribution systems in major cities. I see nothing wrong with powerful magic reshaping fantasy economies. That is what it would do if it really existed.

The Realms also has a plethora of cultures, some alike to real world cultures and some unique to the realms. Third edition did a good job of working in regional dialects for languages, which make it so two people from a certain culture can converse without everyone knowing what they are saying. The regional dialects help give the feel of the PC's being in a different region along with dress and customs.

Overall, the Realms is probably the best RPG fantasy world created to date. I very much enjoy playing in the Realms. I also feel as long as you ignore the novels, the Realms can support any kind of campaign, low or high powered.

 

[d12]

slight RttToEE spoliers.
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I just finished running RttToEE in the Realms. My previous exposure to the realms before this came from reading everything by RA Salvatore plus about 10 other realms novels by other authors and playing icewind dale and Neverwinter Nights. My players all have various experience with the setting ranging from none to slightly less than me.

What attracted me to the Relams was the fact that everytime I set down to create a homebrew world it ended up looking 90% like the realms so I finally decided that it would be easier to fit my own original creations into the realms than the other way around. The other thing that attracted me was the fact that several of my player were sort of familiar with the setting. So when a player decided he character was from Badur's Gate, he kew what he was talking about. I also like the fact that if the players suddenly decide to go to "X" for any reason, I can quickly reference the FRCS and decide what's there.

So in my RttToEE campaign, the PCs spent much of their time in the middle of know where in the Western heartlands [which is were I put Hommlet and the major dungeon of the adventure]. None of the this was particularly tied to the realms but when the player found a power evil artifact in the course of the adventure they thought "Where do we take this?" They came up with Waterdeep, teleported there and I referenced the FRCS to see who it would make since to talk to. When they met Khleben Blackstaff, it didn't seem cheesey because he didn't introduce himself and only one player recognized the character. There have been several other situations like this one.

So, um....in short ...what jester said...

 

[Swack-Iron]

It baffles me how the place gets sort of sterilized. There seems to be an underlying assumption by people that assumes that travel is not really dangerous and the places are not really interesting.

Ohhhhhh, not in my game! The PCs in the campaign I've been running for a couple of years now have spent the last year (and that's Dale Reckoning year, not real year) slogging across the wild and wooly wilderness, starting and Neverwinter and currently passing in to Daggerdale (with a stop in Silverymoon along the way). They have a big love/hate relationship with overland travel; while it's often tedious and lengthly, it's also sporadically exciting/dangerous. It's a great, big wilderness in the North, filled with danger and excitement.

The trick, as a DM, is to realize that stuff happens out there in those vast stretches between cities. Every day I roll a 10% chance that there will be a random encounter, and I roll on weather tables to see if they get a sunny day of horseback riding or have to hole up from a raging blizzard. And their enemies, who are of course more powerful with access to scrying magic, etc., can also interact with them on their journies.

Any DM who doesn't use the vast stretches of wilderness to their advantage is doing their players a disservice, IMO.

 

[Swack-Iron]

Re: Re: [FR] Campaign Setting interpretation diatribe

I think most Realms-bashing comes from several sources:

1. People that hate Drizzt and project that on the setting. (An aside: I've never really understood the intense dislike that some people feel towards the character. Aside from being a Drow, he's really no different than a large number of PC's I've seen.) (I'd never allow such a character in my game! The setting must be broken.)

I've always thought that Drizz't was hated because he's popular, and for no other good reason.

3. People who have a special dislike for high-level characters and project that dislike upon the setting, as if having a couple handfulls of really powerful people means that great a deal in the everyday functioning of the Realms. (Elminster is the lover of a goddess and is 42nd level? Why doesn't he rule the world!? If I were 42nd level, I would! The setting must be terrible.)

I've never been able to understand why some people feel this way. The characters in the FR game I run have had a couple of brief meetings with Lady Alustriel, and that's it. No other interaction with high-level characters should be necessary. There's plenty of stuff to do in the Realms without ever interacting with any character that WotC/TSR have ever invented.

After all, if you were playing a game set in the modern real world (say, and X-Filesish campaign) how often would the PCs interact with a head of state, or a captain of industry, or a high level military commander? Perhaps once or twice, briefly, but never on a regular basis, and those people certainly wouldn't be bailing the PCs out on any kind of regular basis. Why should it be any different in the Forgotten Realms?

6. And some people - a smaller number than anyone would suspect! - who have read the setting book and found it not to their taste for various reasons.

To me, this will always be the most valid reason for disliking the Realms. Why can't more people simply express it this way?

 

[Ranes]

I'm ambivalent about FR. I remember when it was first released. I bought it and liked it, primarily for the simple reason that here was a CS that didn't already have a bunch of preconceptions associated with it. Alas, I never got to run a game set in it during those early years.

Last year, I bought the 3E FRCS. I know that a lot of time has passed since my first encounter with the setting and the original reason for its appeal has long gone. That, I thought, is no bad thing. I've never read the novels, nor have any of my players, so metagaming and preconceptions are not issues. I don't like Drizz't, for the sole reason that every time I read about him, I think of how similar in some respects but less inspiring in many respects he is to Moorcock's Elric. Not only that, I'm afraid that, the opening paragraph of his biography, on page 178, makes me laugh aloud every time I read it. Even so, I can easily envisage running an FR campaign with no Drizz't in it. How much work would that be? Nada.

My problem with FR is its prevalence of high levels of magic. I'm not a snob. I believe it takes a great deal of skill to run any campaign with high magic levels and I salute those DMs who can. However, I'm not sure I fall into that category of DM. Therefore, when I was considering where to set my new campaign, I backed away from the FR.

However, Aaron's original post makes a number of interesting points very well. Perhaps, in time, I will feel more confident about running a setting there. Right now, the potential ramifications of Magick Shoppes intimidates me. But don't consider myself an FR basher. Consider me as one of that small number of people who fall into group 6 but who haven't dismissed the setting completely. Thanks for an interesting thread.

 

[Arcane Runes Press]

Re: Re: Re: [FR] Campaign Setting interpretation diatribe

I've never been able to understand why some people feel this way. The characters in the FR game I run have had a couple of brief meetings with Lady Alustriel, and that's it. No other interaction with high-level characters should be necessary. There's plenty of stuff to do in the Realms without ever interacting with any character that WotC/TSR have ever invented.

After all, if you were playing a game set in the modern real world (say, and X-Filesish campaign) how often would the PCs interact with a head of state, or a captain of industry, or a high level military commander? Perhaps once or twice, briefly, but never on a regular basis, and those people certainly wouldn't be bailing the PCs out on any kind of regular basis. Why should it be any different in the Forgotten Realms?

I think part of the issue is that there is quite a vocal contingent of FR fans who are quite obsessed with the MVPs of the setting.

On various boards and in my own gaming circle, I've seen or known a good sized chunk of people who followed the exploits of certain characters with the fervor you see basketball fans follow Michael Jordan.

Arguments over stats, "who'd win" battles, what should X do next?, fanfic (including slash stuff), artwork, and so on and so on.

For a not insignificant group of people, a Realm's campaign isn't a Realm's campaign unless it involves direct interaction with FR notables.

When you combine this with 2nd edition sourcebooks like "The Seven Sisters" and "Secrets of the Magister" and the wish fulfillment uber-character exploits of some of the FR notables in various novels*, you get a situation where many gamers can't (or won't) separate the setting from the NPCs.

For myself, I've played in a few good FR campaigns, but I just don't care for the setting that much.

Patrick Y.




* For example; I have a problem with the presentation of Elminster in Greenwood's novels - he's just too over the top. I also used to read excerpts from the "Shadows of the Avatars (iirc)" series out loud to my wife, and we'd giggle. Finally, I remember trying to read one of the Harper series, a murder mystery starring Storm Silverhand, and finally throwing it across the room when her "wonderfulness" just got to be too much (and frankly a little creepy, ie; the topless sword training).