[FR] Everyone take a deep breath...

[JeffB]

I'm just gonna stick with the OGB and FR1/FR5. Thats pretty much all I'll ever need, and frankly all I LIKE about the Realms anymore.

FR, IMO had pretty much jumped the shark once the 3.0 FRCS came out (as good of a RPG product that it was), and this whole timeline advance has cemented my suspicion AFAIC

 

[Uzzy]

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...

Quite so. The reappearance of the Shades and Bane were fairly big changes. I always viewed the Red Wizards becoming more mercantile as a natural change, seeing as their whole plans for world domination kept being foiled by a certain Chosen of Mystra. Azoun's death changed a little in Cormyr, but we still have the Obarskyrs.

The differences between 2nd Edition Realms and 3rd Edition Realms were many, but it was still the same setting at it's base. A point I made before was that even if you didn't use the City of Shade in your campaign, you would still find uses for many of the 3rd Edition Sourcebooks WoTC print, such as Lords of Darkness, Power of Faerún etc. This new change worries me. The last sentence in Grand History of the Realms says..

'Sages in centuries to come mark the Weave's destruction in the Year of Blue Fire as the end of the old world, and the beginning of the new'

That is a change far above and beyond anything 3rd Edition threw at us. If the setting takes a big leap forwards timewise, I fear that my use for new Realms products will drop to nil. Which would be sad. Sure, a new Realms may bring in new people, but how many will stick with it? Will it be more then the fans WoTC will lose? I don't know. All I know is that the information recieved so far has me worried about the future of the Realms.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

'Sages in centuries to come mark the Weave's destruction in the Year of Blue Fire as the end of the old world, and the beginning of the new'

"Historians in centuries to come mark the invention of the internet as the end of the old world, and the beginning of the new"

This sentence would also be true in some ways. But when the internet was invented, nobody really knew all the implications of this invention.

The sentence "The end of the old world, and the beginning of the new" could mean anything. Including quite a few things that wouldn't be apparent at the time of the event itself, and which would play over the course of the next years, decades, and even centuries. But we don't know yet.

And thus, any speculation about how drastic the changes will be is just that - speculation.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

And this is why I don't run FR games. There is too much material out that fans of the setting declare as too important to be 'wrong'.

Maybe there's too much material out that fans of the setting declare as too important to be 'wrong', but changing all that material at once is probably the best way to annoy as many fans as possible.

Personally I prefer a world that moves and changes.. sometimes drastically.

It's not as if the Realms were frozen all this time, especially during 3e. Stuff like the City of Shade appearing, a new cosmology being used, several cities being wiped from the map, gods dying....

But what they're doing now goes way beyond that. The Realms aren't changing drastically, they're changing completely. All the new Realms seem to have in common with the old ones are a bunch of names, everything else has changed. Can you really say that that's the same world?

I like the books where major characters are killed off mid-plot instead of being immune to death.

Like Khelben? Zaknafein? Seiveril Miritar? Sarya Dlardrageth? Matron Do'Urden? Matron Baenre? Fyodor of Rashemen?

In five or so years, the Realms will get smashed with a hammer again and some new voices will be on this board vehemetly accusing WoTC of being "extremely un-Faerunian" for changing away from the 'points of light' setting concept...

Does that change anything about the fact that they're FUBARing the Realms right now?

change is good.

Up to a certain point, sure. But as you come to the point where the thing being changed is no longer recognisable, it ceases to be good.

Change is like medicin. The right amount will cure you, too much of it will kill you.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

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.

I seem to be doomed to repeat one thing: Change isn't an all-or-nothing matter.


No one's saying that the Realms should never change, and we're not saying that the changes should only be small and inconsequential. But they went too far. You can't justify changing everything by saying "no change is bad". You don't set someone on fire if he's feeling chilly.




I'll repeat it some more, maybe it will stick.
Change isn't an all-or-nothing matter.
Change isn't an all-or-nothing matter.
Change isn't an all-or-nothing matter.
Change isn't an all-or-nothing matter.
Change isn't an all-or-nothing matter.
Change isn't an all-or-nothing matter.
Change isn't an all-or-nothing matter.
Change isn't an all-or-nothing matter.
Change isn't an all-or-nothing matter.
Change isn't an all-or-nothing matter.
Change isn't an all-or-nothing matter.
Change isn't an all-or-nothing matter.
Change isn't an all-or-nothing matter.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Sure, a new Realms may bring in new people, but how many will stick with it? Will it be more then the fans WoTC will lose?

That's a very important point.

Will the new buyers outnumber those who stop buying? They change the Realms so it's 100% compatible to all of 4e's rules and concepts, old fans be damned. This might lead to some people becoming interested in the FR (again). Some of those might stick with the Realms, and some of those who do might buy a lot, maybe even all the books.

A lot of mights, and every step of the way, the crowd thins.

But I say that most of those who really like the Realms now will go.


They're antagonising existing customers (soon to be ex-customers) in favour of potential new customers.

 

[Uzzy]

I'd certainly say that the invention of the Internet and WWW changed the world. May as well call it a new world. You are indeed correct that we don't know the full extent of the changes, but what I've seen so far from official sources worries me. I'm not one for speculation, which is why I've stuck to those official sources. Grand History, the Orc King preview chapter and staff blogs for instance.

Many things could change between now and the printing of the 4th Edition FRCS. But I'll repeat, what I've seen so far worries me.

 

[pawsplay]

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?

IMXP, there are people who really enjoy delving into an imaginary world. If the changes are big enough, you run the risk of a Star Trek: TOS / Star Trek: TNG kind of split. And it doesn't seem really fair to some of the fans who have invested the most.

OTOH, nobody is really offended by the Marvel Ultimate line. If you don't like that take on things, you just don't buy it.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Like Khelben? Zaknafein? Seiveril Miritar? Sarya Dlardrageth? Matron Do'Urden? Matron Baenre? Fyodor of Rashemen?

You know, while I haven't bought every Realms supplement by a long shot, I do have quite a few of them. Heck, I even have the original gray box!

Yet I only recognized three of those (Khelben, Do'Urden, Baenre), and only Khelben really seems to be significant for the Realms at large to me.

And his death wouldn't have affected any of my Realms campaigns much, since he appeared only in one of them (and only for a short scene in which he persuaded the PCs to sell him the Scroll of Netheril they had found). Elminster, on the other hand, hasn't appeared in any of the Forgotten Realms campaigns I was involved in.

Not because the DM of the campaign didn't like him. No, it was simply assumed that he was busy doing something else somewhere else while the PCs were having their own adventures.

Too often people seem to forget that Faerun is big. Really, really big. Several times the size of North America big. Frankly, you could kill off every NPCs above 15th level and most people living in the world would hardly even notice. And you can similarly ignore the soap opera dramas of the novels and still have a vast and diverse setting left over that provides fodder for a multitude of campaigns.

So Mystra dies. Which is a bummer for her priests and a source of worry for archmages. But presumably, there are still wizards out there and magic still works somehow, which in the end is what matters most for the average adventurer. And thus you'll still have adventuring parties consisting of a fighter, a cleric, a rogue, and a wizard going off to fight evil, kill monsters, and loot ancient treasures in the same lands of Faerun that gamers have known for ages. Some of the details will be different, to be sure - after all, a lot of time has passed. But many things will still be the same so that it all will undoubtedly the same setting, just like Earth is still recognizably the same world as it was in 1980.

 

[bastrak]

In the transition from 2nd Edition to 3rd Edition they bent over backwards to encourage their existing customers to make the transition. With the transition from 3rd Edition to 4th Edition, on the other hand, they seem hell-bent on alienating their existing customers.

It's almost as if they want the market to fork.

It certainly seems that way to me too.