FR to look like a Roger Dean painting

[Wormwood]

Damn I'm good at cynicism/paranoia. I should probably ditch optimism altogether, eh?

Optimism is more difficult than it looks.

I say go with your strengths.

 

[The Ubbergeek]

Ruin, what's not awesome in that, really?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Ruin, what's not awesome in that, really?

Well, here's the thing, and maybe this makes me a nerd and/or proves I was barely born in the 1970s, let alone old enough to think that sort of band was cool. To me, yeah, the FR was, as the quoted person implies "The Renaissence with Magic in quasi-Euro-Middle-Asia", and you know what? That's how I liked it! I liked the fact that the FR was slightly down to Earth, that it was just whoooo-whaaaaa and bong hits.

Whereas the 4E FR seems to be all about the bong hits and LSD and trippy "visions of another weeeeeeeerld maaaaaaaan", which I admit IS kind of awesome, but it's not he kind of setting I'm interested in running.

I mean, compare to books and stuff maybe. I want to run something that's like Locke Lamora with more monsters and magic (or Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser with more non-humans, or something). My players like their vague quasi-real world. What I don't want to run is a trippy-hippy world full of floating islands, inexplicable twisted giant columns of stone, flying fortresses, and so on. Some of that is cool, but lots? Everywhere? It's just so far from our reality that it starts to lose the fun, for us.

I'm reminded of The Colour of Magic, when Rincewind and that barbarian type are dealing with the Pern rip-off, and how the Pern rip-off's dragons and floating castle can only exist within an extremely strong magical field - it seems like all of 4E FR takes place inside that field, and it's... bleh... not my style.

Still, 4E as a whole? No reason I can't use that for a less "Woooo floating islands" setting.

 

[Darkwolf71]

meh, i prefer my settings to look more like this-

Oh yeah! That's what I'm talkin about!

 

[Primal]

You know, grognards may love this... well, the ones who was there in the 0D&D era. Because this is kind of retro-feeling, similar to classic old school D&D art...

Grognards? What have they to do with RPGs?

 

[The Ubbergeek]

Grognards? What have they to do with RPGs?

In geeks parlance, there is rpg grognards.

 

[The Little Raven]

Well, here's the thing, and maybe this makes me a nerd and/or proves I was barely born in the 1970s, let alone old enough to think that sort of band was cool. To me, yeah, the FR was, as the quoted person implies "The Renaissence with Magic in quasi-Euro-Middle-Asia", and you know what? That's how I liked it! I liked the fact that the FR was slightly down to Earth, that it was just whoooo-whaaaaa and bong hits.

And I'm glad they got away from the horrible "File off Cortez's name and slap it in the Realms" crap that permeated the previous editions of the game. It shows an utterly lack of creativity and it was the same crap a lot of other RPGs were doing (Warhammer, as a perfect example). It's good they're actually trying something distinct, instead of the same ol' lukewarm "It's Europe... but not... <goofy mystery music>" setting.

 

[Mortellan]

Sweet album covers, but if those are how Faerun will look, does that mean the outer planes now look like a Renaissance earth? Doubtful, but I normally reserve the weird and fantastic terrain for the outer planes. I guess one could go to the other extreme and have the planes resemble surrealist paintings. Think Salvador Dali.

 

[Kishin]

Oh dear. I guess this confirms that, despite my plaintive bleatings to the contrary, I am now officially "out" of the 4E FR. Album covers of terrible '70s bands are precisely what I feared the new FR was like, and apparently my fears were spot-on with laser-like precision. Damn I'm good at cynicism/paranoia. I should probably ditch optimism altogether, eh?

You should probably not refer to Yes as 'terrible', considering they're arguably the most influential progressive rock band of all time.

I'd wait for the actual art to hit, and then we'll see. They certainly won't have the muted feel as Dean.

 

[Doug McCrae]

In the early 80s, I had a friend who loved Yes and Roger Dean. I could never get into Yes, almost the antithesis of what I like in music, more of a punk fan, but I loved Dean's art. His designs for commercial airliners were particularly wonderful. If those had been implemented we would live in a hippy paradise today.


Also, smurfs pwn.