[FR] Everyone take a deep breath...

[PeterWeller]

Bingo.

I used to LOVE my old 1e Grey Box FR campaign.

But once the 'canon' set in? Once a player told me that I was doing it "wrong"?

Later, Realms.

I get the impression that they're trying to move back towards an "old grey box" style world. There'll be a wealth of information about the core "starting" areas: Cormyr, Dales, Silver Marches, Western Heartlands, and Waterdeep, and the other regions will be less detailed and more open for DMs to add their own ideas while not having to rewrite or retcon large sections of the campaign setting. The supposed destruction of Sembia sort of points to this direction. If you remember the old days, you'll remember that Sembia was left open as a region for DMs to develop as they saw fit for their own campaigns. If Sembia collapses in a civil war, that gives the DM a lot of room to develop the area for their own needs.

 

[pawsplay]

There has been a lot of talk on these boards about the advanced timeline of the 4E Forgotten Realms setting, with a lot of shouting of "This is stupid!", "The Forgotten Realms are ruined!" and "I won't buy this!".

I'm not a huge Realms fan. Still, I pretty much never like timeline advancements/metaplot/etc. I especially don't like it when heavy-handed story elements rewrite the rules.... the Mage revision probably killed that for me.

What's wrong with just introducing a new FR instead of messing with a setting a lot of people already like the way it is?

 

[whydirt]

Here's another way to look at things: if the new version of FR didn't have major differences, people would rip on WoTC for releasing setting books that were essentially the same as those published during 3e. They're kind of in a damned if they do, damned if they don't situation.

 

[PeterWeller]

What's wrong with just introducing a new FR instead of messing with a setting a lot of people already like the way it is?

Isn't that kind of what they're doing? I hate to use this catchphrase, but they're not burning anyone's old books. I doubt it will be much trouble to gloss the 4E rules over the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd edition versions of the setting if that's the Realms you want to run. Whydirt is right; they're stuck between publishing updates of current books, or doing something big and publishing new books. Both paths will piss people off, but the second has a much better chance of selling new books.

 

[pawsplay]

Isn't that kind of what they're doing?

No. Not really. Not at all, I would have to say.

What they're doing is basically a scorched earth policy toward any holdouts on the old canon. The new FR is the result of canon in the old, you WILL adopt the new FR or you are abandoning canon.

 

[Andor]

I think the new FR canon is great. Listen to this stuff...

Welcome to the new face of Forgotten Realms:
The Borg have landed in the Sea of Fallen Stars and created their own bionic island from which they plan domination of Wizards of Thay (turned Romulans) and Elves of Myth Drannor who now live alongside the Vulcans. Oh, and that’s not to mention the alliance between a rogue faction of Klingons and the Drow...

 

[PeterWeller]

No. Not really. Not at all, I would have to say.

What they're doing is basically a scorched earth policy toward any holdouts on the old canon. The new FR is the result of canon in the old, you WILL adopt the new FR or you are abandoning canon.

How is someone abandoning canon if they choose to set a campaign before the Spell Plague? Have I abandoned canon if I decide to set a campaign in Jhaamdath before the fall of Netheril, or in the Vast before the Time of Troubles?

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

How is someone abandoning canon if they choose to set a campaign before the Spell Plague? Have I abandoned canon if I decide to set a campaign in Jhaamdath before the fall of Netheril, or in the Vast before the Time of Troubles?

Even if that is abandoning canon, it's not a bad thing. It's your game. Of course, if your players are current canon fanatics, you might have a problem ... sounds like you don't have that problem though.

It seems like WotC is going out of their way to smash the Forgotten Realms with a sledgehammer and put the remaining pieces together to fit 4e design philosophies such as "points of light". As Kae'Yoss said, the things that made Forgotten Realms distinct from other settings such as Greyhawk get lost in such a shuffle.

Nah. I think the changes are mainly to get gamers to play in the Realms who would like to, but are scared off by the uber-NPCs and interfering deities.

 

[Wormwood]

The supposed destruction of Sembia sort of points to this direction. If you remember the old days, you'll remember that Sembia was left open as a region for DMs to develop as they saw fit for their own campaigns. If Sembia collapses in a civil war, that gives the DM a lot of room to develop the area for their own needs.

Three words:

Sembian Peace Wall.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Let's not forget that the 3E version of the Forgotten Realms also had a time jump and some some rather large changes - most notably, that honking big Shade city floating over the Anauroch that immediately began to terraform the surrounding area. Oh, and Bane was suddenly back. And Mulhorand started conquering its neighbors, the Red Wizards suddenly started with their travelling salesmen act, King Azoun of Cormyr died, and...

Did you have to implement all these changes in your own Forgotten Realms campaign? No - you could simply take what you wanted and ignore the rest, and use the rules parts of the book to run your game with D&D 3rd edition.

And the same will be true of the next edition as well. Don't like the death of Mystra and some other gods? Just ignore it. The death of Khelben Arunson and the disappearance of Elminster? Just ignore it. You should still be able to use the rules parts and the rest of the setting material, of which there should be a lot.

I mean, I don't have The Grand History of the Realms yet, but how many pages of it are dedicated to the timeline leading up to the 4th edition? Not many, I bet. Are these few pages enough to judge the new setting by? I don't think so.

Concerned, possibly. Judge, no.