FR Update at WotC-Year of the Ageless One

[Zaukrie]

Interstingly (at least to me), some of these changes mirror things I had been considering or had already done. I never thought that the godswar had enough effect on the world, so I had put places in where magic went haywire. I had also mostly trashed egypt, er unther, and made the inner sea much bigger and put Rifts Atlantis (altered) in there, to explain why the Red Wizards weren't more powerful. I had altered Sembia quite a bit. I think I can work with all of the changes so far, and I like what I read.

 

[schroederlance]

Whats the point of the changes if the Sword Coast (where most people play anyway) remains unchanged?

i would have preferred if they had destroyed Waterdeep, made Elminster go mad due to mystra's death and become a lich and a major setting villain, make Thay into a lawful good paladin/white mage stronghold, and have the Zhentarim completely destroy the Harpers and now be led by Elminster the LichLord.

Then the would go ahead and reveal that Elminsters successor is a wizard called Rajaat, with some very interesting take on wizardry. rajaat would go onto become a very powerful 'good' wizard, and recruit 12 apprentices of his own.

Soon, Rajaat would go on a crusade against 'evil' and start killing all evil races. he would be very popular in Faerun.

Meanwhile some adventurers would finally kill elminister the lichlord. (via published advanetures...aka your group would do this)

In dndn 5E they finally push the setting ahead 200 years, and now reveal that Rajaat and his 'champions' actually destroiyed most races; but their particular brand of wizardry somehow altered the fabric of the world. Also, Rajaat even drew upon the sun for power and thus has nearly killed it.

The setting would be renamed DarkSun, adn that would be FR's new future.

Thoughts?

Sounds great except for one thing...

In Dark Sun lore, Rajaat used Arcane Magic to destroy the other races and defile the world. Arcane magic was unknown before Rajaat discovered it, the rest of the world only used Psionices.

Otherwise, good idea.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Their wallet has about a million hit points, and we have daggers. This may take a while.

That's the thing...no matter how many people you get on board a boycott, nobody will notice the lost revenues. Books will still fly off the shelves. The "if you don't like it, don't buy it" line reads like "if you don't like it, shut up and give up." The only thing that FR fans can do (and I'm not one of them, by the way; I couldn't care less whether they have the setting die in a fire) is complain and hope that they will be heard and responded to.

 

[Troy70]

I plan to wait and see what more info come out on FR before I get it.

 

[Uzzy]

You know, there are many ways the designers could have fixed perceived problems in the Realms, without resorting to such drastic measures as these. (Regardless of the lack of truth behind these problems) Better presentation, limiting the scope of novels, using the likes of Elminster as they were originally intended etc. They could even have just left the Realms as it is, and make another setting that would appeal to others who dislike the Realmsian style.

But for whatever reason, WoTC decided they needed to overhaul the entire thing. It makes me sad. I'll do my bit to tell WoTC how I feel about these changes, and not buy the 4th Edition Realms book. All I can do, really. I've got just about enough material to last me a while though.

The new Realms is not something I'd want to play in. Ah well. I'm upset that countless plots, characters and groups will never now get the attention they deserve (I wanted to know what would happen between Alusair and Calednei, for one). Meh, I'm at the acceptance level right now.

 

[Raloc]

Assuming you like the 4E rules but don't like the 4E FR, couldn't you just run 2E/3E FR using 4E rules?

True, true. Could do that. I've never had any of the problems most complain about running the Realms (too many high level NPCs, factions etc., since I just don't make them important, it's assumed they're all off doing their own thing and don't have time to be saving the necks of younger adventurers, or helping them stave off a thread against Toril). Of course, to some degree the 4e FR gets rid of the (crucial) need for some of the old fluff (my example is for instance, having never run Calimport, I needed to look at 2e books to see what the deal was to run properly, and it worked great).

 

[Raloc]

This is why you HAVE o buy the new FR Stuff. The world is changed and all the old (and unfun) Stuff is of no use.
FR is a Brave New World now!

Well, I definitely feel the whole "must buy it because it's so different". But I never found the Realms to be really fundamentally unfun. That being said, most people here wouldn't consider my games very strict interpretations of the Realms anyway. Main thing is that I won't be able to use the FR atlas, which I find extremely awesome. It really allows you to (especially over ORPG for instance) to let the players go where they will, since you just pull up the appropriate map and bingo. If they redid that, I'd definitely buy.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Do you know how elves got into Toril?

Dwarves?

Mulan humans?

Orcs?

Yeah, to me, the dragonborn's arrival is the most Faerunian part of the whole piece.

 

[caudor]

I'm buying the whole thing hook, line, and sinker. I like the FR changes! More danger. More drama. Less baggage. Fresh fluff.

Of course, I'm excited about 4e in general too.

Something tells me the first half of this year is going to drag by.

 

[Neil Bishop]

You know, there are many ways the designers could have fixed perceived problems in the Realms, without resorting to such drastic measures as these. (Regardless of the lack of truth behind these problems) Better presentation, limiting the scope of novels, using the likes of Elminster as they were originally intended etc. (snip)

I think you have hit the nail on the head here.

It doesn't matter if FR4E's campaign setting is a marvellous piece of work (I think most people, according to various reviews etc..., consider the FRCS for 3E to be outstanding) because, within no time, a series of novels will come out and resolve some of the interesting plot hooks that are to be found in the new campaign setting.

This is what happened in 3E. Obould the orc king was revealed as a potential BBEG in the FRCS and then also in Silver Marches, an outstanding regional supplement. What does WotC do next? They hand off the whole plot hook to a hack writer (1) and he resolves the plot hook in a trilogy.

Also, FR3E suffered from not having an introductory adventure or series of introductory adventures that would show a new FR DM how to use the setting as his own campaign world. Will this be addressed or, like in 3E, will the first adventure be a mini-campaign for 10th+ level characters where the backstory is only fully known after about four years as it gradually resolved in a series of six novels?

I suppose my essential point is this: the campaign setting can be good or bad, that's almost irrelevant, what really matters is whether there will be a clear and defined strategy as to how the novels and the game world will interact. (2)

1: I know R A Salvatore is a best-selling author and from time-to-time can write well. However, he has become almost a parody of himself, just as George Lucas did with Return of the Jedi and great chunks of prequel episodes. And RAS suffers from the George Lucas "ewok and gungans" syndrome with clinically insane characters with really stupid names and strange speaking patterns (normally with dwarves: witness the dwarf, Athrogate, in the Artemis novels [and what's with naming a male assassin after a Greek goddess?] or those insane and inane Bouldershoulder Brothers in the cleric series).

2: Of course, I don't think there will be for two reasons: (i) I am sure that the novels are significantly more profitable than the game world; and (ii) I don't think that this sort of strategic thinking is something that WotC would like to do for fear of it tying their hands if they have a new idea later.