FR Update at WotC-Year of the Ageless One

[Imban]

But, you didn't actually do so. That speaks volumes right there. It may have been interesting, but, just not interesting enough. Sounds like a whole pile of the Realms material to me.

Look, I thought the whole hanging Unther/Mulholrand plot was lame and wanted Shuruppak to fall down a well for as long as I can remember, so I don't have a horse in this one, but that's a really silly statement. We can't all run every campaign we've wanted to run, and that doesn't mean that the ones not run were somehow deficient or not interesting enough. For instance, just a month or two ago I was brewing an Exalted campaign that I canned because another of my friends declared he was running one that had a similar premise and had more idea formulation done on it. This doesn't mean that the setting I had chosen for my game was "not interesting enough" compared the setting he had chosen for his, or anything like that.

There are lots of reasons why you might hold off or can a campaign, lack of interest only one among them. *shrugs*

Anyone else think that the new FR looks a lot like the old Scarred Lands?

While the new FR has a good bit more magical geography, I sure hope not. I hated the Scarred Lands with a fiery passion because they adhered strictly to the White Wolf trope that everyone was either living in a rubbish heap, screwed seven ways from Sunday, or blatantly evil. Granted, Cormyr is apparently doing better than ever, and Myth Drannor seems to still be a good guy nation after its rebuilding in late 3e, so I don't think this one is coming about.

Honestly, I get more of the Scarred Lands cosmological feel in the core setting. While the Scarred Lands cosmology had some strong White Wolfish influences ("all wizards' spellcasting is contributing directly to a future armageddon!"), it wasn't bad, all in all. I'm not sure how much I appreciate the Gods vs. Primordials struggle taking place in the core setting, since it tends to be an overwhelming focus in whatever cosmology it's in, but whatever.

 

[JosephK]

I'm a fairly old-school (quasi old-school atleast, some 16 years of ongoing campaigns) and I really like this write-up. Imo, one of the more iconic traits of the realms is change - cataclysmic change.. While the ToT was a almost just a little ripple compared to a hundred yearlong cataclysm, the history of the realms is littered with cataclysmic scale events. Granted, it has mainly been done as in the form backstory before (except the tot?), not really done while people were actually playing, but I still think it's kinda cool. Vast Empires come and go, races (and monsters) come and go, the land is scarred (literally) from numerous of these events. Now some new guys have come, old empires are gone and new scars have appeared - the realms have been shaken up.. Imo, the write-up reads like quintessential realms stuff

/just hope Fzoul makes it!

 

[humble minion]

But, you didn't actually do so. That speaks volumes right there. It may have been interesting, but, just not interesting enough. Sounds like a whole pile of the Realms material to me.

To be fair, there's a bit of chicken and egg about that argument. Did nobody play in the Old Empires because they weren't properly detailed, or did WotC never bother properly detailing them because nobody played there?

Remember, the FRCS was very very scant on Old Empires info. There was slightly over one page on Mulhorand, and about the same on Chessenta. Unther had nearly two pages, but that included an NPC statblock. Murghom and Semphar got a paragraph each.

By comparison, every one of the Dales (population about 30000 each) had a writeup of about a page and a half, plus the page-long regional overview at the start of the section. It's just plain easier to run a Dales campaign than it is to run an Old Empires campaign - there's much, much more info. And of course, it's worth remembering that the Time of Troubles and the invasion of Unther turned the whole region upsidedown twice since the last time WotC/TSR published any detailed material on the Empires, (hell, when the Old Empires book was published, it was still 1st ed and Gilgeam was still alive!) so it's not like the pdfs in the back catalogue are going to be of much help either. Chessenta got a bit of coverage in Dragons of Faerun, but in general, a GM running an Old Empires campaign has to do pretty much everything him or herself.

There was enormous potential in the 3e Empires, but to be honest, the whole region has gotten so little support over such a long time that I'm not surprised very few people based campaigns there...

 

[Minicol]

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.

"Shut up and Give Up" : That was not my intended meaning, far from it.

If you think lost revenue does not matter to them, why do you think arguing will help any more ?

Besides, I will reverse your argument : if you complain, gnaw your teeth, AND Keep buying ... why would they listen to you ? What matters to them is the level of their sales. As long as you buy there is no reason for them to change, you only prove them right.

When I don't like a book, I don't buy it.
When I don't like a film, I don't buy the ticket.
When I don't like a video game, I don't buy the video game

The list is long, and could go on but I don't like the FR 4 e ? Then ...

I don't see ANY reason to buy something you do not like. When you do so, it ceases to be a leisure, and becomes an addiction.

So people, bump up your will saves !

 

[Minicol]

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

Quoted from Dork tower : These are the little Things that count.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I've already seen a lot of major negative response to the changes on rpg.net (most seem to be concerned with the name of one minor background character... But rpg.net is weird like that)

If you mean my thread, that has nothing to do with the Fourth Edition time-jump, since Alicia Kendrick (FFS!) is dead now. I imagine. It was sparked by the publication of the Grand History of the Realms article covering the Moonshae Isles.

 

[Tharen the Damned]

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.

Nah, I just made fun of the whole 4th edition hype that many things in 3rd were "unfun" and they changed it. As the Realms get change big time they must have been unfun.
Just an ironic joke.

 

[Reaper Steve]

After reading World and Monsters, I'm inclined to think that the Shades of Netheril are actually Shadar-Kai.
The fluff in the FR article about the shades, shadow-transformed, humans from a city that went to the Plane of Shadow, etc. is all very close to the new fluff for Shadar-Kai presented in W&M. Not exact, but close enough to easily be FR version. Fits in line with their efforts to make Shadar-Kai more front-and-center.

Making this assumption, I now doubt my original prediction that the shades/shadow-transformed will be the other PC race.

 

[Imban]

Hmm. That's possible, but I'm not sure how likely - the Shadar-Kai and Shades historically have been miles apart in terms of culture, even if they have many superficial similarities. I'd say this depends on how appropriate the Shadar-Kai stats are for the Shades, since the MM's been worked on first. If they won't be, Shades will have their own writeup for the Realms, instead of just their own culture and name.

 

[Reaper Steve]

Hmm. That's possible, but I'm not sure how likely - the Shadar-Kai and Shades historically have been miles apart in terms of culture, even if they have many superficial similarities. I'd say this depends on how appropriate the Shadar-Kai stats are for the Shades, since the MM's been worked on first. If they won't be, Shades will have their own writeup for the Realms, instead of just their own culture and name.

I've been out of FR for a while... are Shades something already FR-specific? (versus just a generic undead?)