FR - details on the spellplague

[Mouseferatu]

This is exactly how I feel about it. I am looking forward to 4e FR.

Fourthed.

As both a player and a writer, I've occasionally wanted to get into FR, but was daunted by the amount of background material. I'm looking forward to the "new beginning."

 

[Khairn]

Fourthed.

As both a player and a writer, I've occasionally wanted to get into FR, but was daunted by the amount of background material. I'm looking forward to the "new beginning."

Meaning no disrespect, but I've read a number of people say they wanted to "get into" FR but were daunted by the amount of background material, and it really does confuse me.

Since its only fluff, and and the GM & players determine where they are going to play, what is forcing you to read it all within a limited period of time? Why couldn't just read a little at a time? Perhaps, just the Silver Marches book, and have an adventure in the North?

A really detailed setting is a fantastic resource. Harn, FR, IK, are all jam packed settings that allow the GM's and players the ultimate flexibility. They can play with just a surface level worth of setting material, or dig deeper and use more material as they want. I know that some players are intimidated by detail, but since its completely in your hands to control, I've always failed to understand why.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Meaning no disrespect, but I've read a number of people say they wanted to "get into" FR but were daunted by the amount of background material, and it really does confuse me.

Since its only fluff, and and the GM & players determine where they are going to play, what is forcing you to read it all within a limited period of time? Why couldn't just read a little at a time? Perhaps, just the Silver Marches book, and have an adventure in the North?

Well, a couple of things.

First off, it's not all based on "amount of time." I just don't like settings with that much weight and material, no matter how much time I have to go through it. Even though I can (obviously) change whatever I want, it still makes me feel a little constrained (particularly if I'm not DMing).

Second, as a writer, I didn't really have that option. There comes a point where it's simply more trouble than it's worth to "read into" a setting. Without the reset, I literally could not write for the FR setting, not and have any hope of maintaining consistency with canon.

Now, all that said, I know a lot of people liked FR the way it was, and I really do feel for them. I'm not saying that this change is "the best thing ever." I'm just saying that it's nice from my POV.

 

[Echohawk]

I agree with the Mouse (and welcome back to the boards Ari!). I have every Forgotten Realms product from the grey boxed set right through to A Grand History of the Realms sitting on my shelves, but the sheer weight of all that information has held me back from ever running a campaign there. While I understand the reaction of many fans, for me the 94 year leap is a great opportunity to finally explore the Realms in a game, and I'm very likely to set my first 4th Edition campaign there.

Devyn's point about it being possible to place a campaign in one corner of the Realms and use just some of the information out there is a good one, but I'm the sort of DM who likes to get truly immersed in a setting if I'm staging a campaign there. I like to know the world's "big picture", I like to know the history of the region I'm using for the adventures and I like to know the detail and minutia of the inns, town, villages and other locations the characters are going to visit.

It is also only really feasible to limit a campaign to one corner of the Realms for certain levels of play. As soon as characters have access to teleport spells and other ways of covering large distances, as a DM, I need to be open to the possibility that my players might decide that their characters should pay a visit to legendary Waterdeep, perhaps because they need information about a plot-critical magic item. So even if, by design, I've limited my campaign to a small corner of the world, if I really want to allow my players to explore the world, I feel a need to be familiar with a lot more of it than just that corner.

 

[sunmaster]

Meaning no disrespect, but I've read a number of people say they wanted to "get into" FR but were daunted by the amount of background material, and it really does confuse me.
Since its only fluff, and and the GM & players determine where they are going to play, what is forcing you to read it all within a limited period of time? Why couldn't just read a little at a time? Perhaps, just the Silver Marches book, and have an adventure in the North?
A really detailed setting is a fantastic resource. Harn, FR, IK, are all jam packed settings that allow the GM's and players the ultimate flexibility. They can play with just a surface level worth of setting material, or dig deeper and use more material as they want. I know that some players are intimidated by detail, but since its completely in your hands to control, I've always failed to understand why.

I also wanted always to start a FR Campaign but couldn't because not only there is a mass amount of stuff but _also_ this mass amount of stuff can nowhere be found.

You know if I want to use a setting like FR then I want to let it live in the imaginations of my players.
I don't want to make "my own FR" because then this is not the FR which is written by beginning with Greenwood over Salvatore to all the other authors.
I don't want to make Blackstaff a Gnome warrior because as a GM I can do it.
I want to impersonate (is this the right word???) him as he was imagined by the original author.

So now we are at the point of the problem:
If i want to use Khelben as he is written by the authors

a) show me all the books which describe him - with the requirement that these descriptions have to be up to date because if I am GMming in the year 2525 and Khelben died 2524 then I want to have this fact right at the game table -

b) show me ,please, where I can today _now_ get all these books - to make Khelben live in my game -.

Oh year, all the people who collected all the stuff over all these years can laugh now because they can read up the needed information. Maybe, maybe all the people in the USA can laugh now, too, because I can imagine that there it is very easy to get all these books.

But all other people have only a half (third, fourth) right Forgotten Realms. Most facts are not right. And to get all the facts _today_ (01/12/08) right they have only one chance: Bittorrent , the newly opened FLGS, come and read and learn all things about FR


Then there is another point of view:

If I as a GM can make FR as I want to - for example because I read only the descriptions in the 3rd Ed. CS and most local facts are not mentioned there because they are scattered in the hundred other books -
a) is this FR any more (Khelben as a Gnome warrior, Waterdeep is reigned by an Elf, Waterdeep has 150 inhabitants and other misinformation) , is this bringing the feeling and history and deepness of FR into the minds of the players ?
b) why should I use FR if I have to come with all setting information anyway because I can not find all needed information?


So I am also in the group of the people who calls the world shattering event "welcome".

 

[Darrin Drader]

Second, as a writer, I didn't really have that option. There comes a point where it's simply more trouble than it's worth to "read into" a setting. Without the reset, I literally could not write for the FR setting, not and have any hope of maintaining consistency with canon.

I can definitely relate to that, which is why I'm trying to keep my "outrage" at this in check. On one hand, I've been reading the novels since the Realms was first released, so I have a little more than a passing familiarity and attachment to the setting.

On the other hand, working on Serpent Kingdoms was a lot like getting kicked in the teeth every other day since something I wrote conflicted with something someone else wrote in a Dragon magazine ten years ago, which never saw print in any Realms publication. While Richard Baker's stance was that anything that didn't appear in the 3E FR setting book was no longer considered canon and could be ignored or contradicted, there was the feeling among the other designers of that book that 3E material should be consistent with all 1E and 2E sources. The fact that I could find existing conflicting sources on some things that backed up what I wanted to do just made me a troublemaker.

But yeah, I agree, the Realms is a hard setting to write for, even for someone like me, who has followed it since the Old Gray Box. On one hand, I hate to see the relevance of all that lore dumped, but on the other hand, I think maybe it is time for a reset so it can become more accessible to new players. My biggest question is whether it's wise to blow it up in such a spectacular manner.

What troubles me most is the existence of the new, purely fantastic terrain. I think it was a 2E source that advised against having terrain features that don't match places in the real world. I've always subscribed to that philosophy, so in my own campaign worlds I've never had mountains made out of wood, oceans made of gelatin, or deserts made of cocaine, for instance. I really don't care if they break this guideline with some setting they're doing, but I'm not sure I want to see it done with the classic sword and sorcery setting.

 

[Echohawk]

b) show me ,please, where I can today _now_ get all these books - to make Khelben live in my game -.

Easy: here and here.

With the ready availability of these PDFs, I don't think obtaining the source material (legally!) is really the problem. Reading and digesting it all, on the other hand...

 

[Khairn]

I also wanted always to start a FR Campaign but couldn't because not only there is a mass amount of stuff but _also_ this mass amount of stuff can nowhere be found.

You know if I want to use a setting like FR then I want to let it live in the imaginations of my players.
I don't want to make "my own FR" because then this is not the FR which is written by beginning with Greenwood over Salvatore to all the other authors.
I don't want to make Blackstaff a Gnome warrior because as a GM I can do it.
I want to impersonate (is this the right word???) him as he was imagined by the original author.

So now we are at the point of the problem:
If i want to use Khelben as he is written by the authors

a) show me all the books which describe him - with the requirement that these descriptions have to be up to date because if I am GMming in the year 2525 and Khelben died 2524 then I want to have this fact right at the game table -

b) show me ,please, where I can today _now_ get all these books - to make Khelben live in my game -.

Oh year, all the people who collected all the stuff over all these years can laugh now because they can read up the needed information. Maybe, maybe all the people in the USA can laugh now, too, because I can imagine that there it is very easy to get all these books.

But all other people have only a half (third, fourth) right Forgotten Realms. Most facts are not right. And to get all the facts _today_ (01/12/08) right they have only one chance: Bittorrent , the newly opened FLGS, come and read and learn all things about FR


Then there is another point of view:

If I as a GM can make FR as I want to - for example because I read only the descriptions in the 3rd Ed. CS and most local facts are not mentioned there because they are scattered in the hundred other books -
a) is this FR any more (Khelben as a Gnome warrior, Waterdeep is reigned by an Elf, Waterdeep has 150 inhabitants and other misinformation) , is this bringing the feeling and history and deepness of FR into the minds of the players ?
b) why should I use FR if I have to come with all setting information anyway because I can not find all needed information?


So I am also in the group of the people who calls the world shattering event "welcome".

To paraphrase the problem, it almost sounds like ...

I want to play the FR and its NPC's, as the original creators designed it, not my personal version of them, so therefore all the material needed is difficult to find and daunting to read ....

But in the new FR, I won't have all that daunting material to read.

But by not having all that material you'll also be forced to create your version of the setting & NPC's your playing ... which is what you could have done with the current FR in the first place but didn't do because you wanted to use the creator's version of the setting...

And with each new FR book released, the new creators will fill in more and more of the setting and you'll either have to change what you've already created, or decide to exclude particular books. And this is why I always have difficulty understanding how and why 4E FR will be more accessible than "Classic" FR.

I can very easily understand you not liking "classic" FR and are now willing to give the new version a try. Great ... no problem. But "accessibility" of the setting being in some way better? Nope, I just can't see it.

Now for all you writers out there, I can easily see why you are in support of the change. The difficulty for writers to know and incorporate all the FR material is a VERY daunting task. That to me is a much more valid reason behind the necessity to change than any that I have read so far.

 

[Mephistopheles]

I've always felt that one of the strengths of the FR setting was the amount of material behind it; it's possible to explore FR without ever rolling up a character.

I'm curious what people felt was drawing them to the setting if the volume of background available was putting them off. The reason I ask that is because those of you feeling positive about this change to FR on the basis that you feel it will be more practical for you to run a game in the setting may not really be running a game in the FR you were drawn to. You'll be running a game in whatever this new version of FR ends up being, which seems like it may be quite different from what it has been to date.

This seems to be the trend with 4E and I'm increasingly concerned about it as we hear more about it. Seems like a lot of change to shoehorn a setting into the new core rules, which themselves change a lot of staple elements that have been pretty solid for decades. It's got me spending some time thinking about what made D&D the game it has been as I dwell on the topic of whether or not changing almost every facet of the game will really be giving us the fourth edition of D&D or if it will in fact be a very different game going by the same name.

 

[sunmaster]

To paraphrase the problem, it almost sounds like ...

I want to play the FR and its NPC's, as the original creators designed it, not my personal version of them, so therefore all the material needed is difficult to find and daunting to read ....

But in the new FR, I won't have all that daunting material to read.

But by not having all that material you'll also be forced to create your version of the setting & NPC's your playing ... which is what you could have done with the current FR in the first place but didn't do because you wanted to use the creator's version of the setting...

No, I could not. Because there is written how some things and/or some persons are in the setting.


If I am going to start a new Middle Earth game today and just because either

a) I was too lazy to read or
b) I read some book about it but not the full tomes or
c) I couldn't read up becuse i coudln't found the books

I introduce "Gandalf the Green" - becuse I am the GM and I can do with my world what I want and because I just don't know that Gandalf is not green but dependent on the played time grey or white -

do you really think that this "my" Middle Earth can be called Middle Earth or that the players can have the feeling of Middle Earth if they knew that Gandalf is white not green?

And with each new FR book released, the new creators will fill in more and more of the setting and you'll either have to change what you've already created, or decide to exclude particular books. And this is why I always have difficulty understanding how and why 4E FR will be more accessible than "Classic" FR.

There is one difference: For this actual edition there are all the things already written. For the new material even if I have to change some tidbit later it would not be a breaker because - let me explain -

if they in the first book - the 4th campaign setting -say that the buildings in the new Baldur's Gate consist of Holland cheese and I describe the cheese to my players this cheese (and its smelling) then we together have one consisting imagination.
Then if the authors change it in the next book - the Baldur's Gate book - to French camembert - with some explanation to why of this change - and I after reading it explain it to my players in their next visit to BG then again we will have a consisting imagination.

But if I tell them today that Waterdeep is reigned by an Elf with his five sons and five daugthers as princes then I will break the right imagination of Waterdeep in the minds of the players.

AND
I can in the new edition very easily keep up with all information and all changes.
For the last editions - especially the before last editions - I have even to consult not so legal ways of getting the information.

I can very easily understand you not liking "classic" FR and are now willing to give the new version a try. Great ... no problem. But "accessibility" of the setting being in some way better? Nope, I just can't see it.

We can discuss in a friendly manner or we can stop discussing. Putting words in my writing is not right.
Quote me, please, Sir, where I said that I don't like FR. Quote me where i said that I don't want to play FR.