Greenwood on FR npcs

[eyebeams]

Unfortunately, most of us don't have access to his version of the Realms. So while criticisms of Mr. Greenwood might not be fair (unless its in his novels), criticisms of the published Realms are fair.

Sure, but you have to understand that the current Realms is a sprawling, collaborative creation the Ed Greenwood isn't strictly in charge of any more.

A bit like Eberron... but not like the published setting and not like the novels, some of which (like Elminster in Hell) are written by Mr. Greenwood. In the novels, the deities are just NPCs with uber-power.

Ed's Realms novels go through the same editing, approval and continuity as everybody else's. One example Ed gave in the seminar was how a Commune spell would typically take the form of an indirect omen or a very minor supernatural manifestation (something pivotal to the quest ahead glowing, for instance).

Some of these don't look like PCs at all

See the Knights of Myth Drannor. Shadowdale is pretty much a model adventuring location, complete with ruins with graduated degrees of difficulty.

None of the Chosen fit into either of those categories His best known characters, except maybe Mirt, don't fit into those categories.

Not really. Elminster provides hints and plot hooks. Alustriel is an NPC noble who can provide aid (or not) depending on how the PCs behave. With few exceptions, the novels are not really meant to be models on how to adventure in the Realms. D&D's spinoff fiction has been an independent side of things with its own fanbase for quite some time and shouldn;t be mistaken for the gaming side of the Realms.

What do you mean by cipher?

Just as Ed developed these characters for specific reasons, you should develop your own characters for the same reasons -- or modify existing characters. The vast majority of Realms gaming is not designed for any interaction with the Chosen or megaplot elements. Those exist for the sake of fiction and, frankly, give the major NPCs concerns of their own. Remember that Elminster was originally 26th level magic user with a handful of unique spells who had retired to become a typical, AD&D1e sage. He's Elminster the *sage* -- he answers questions for a modest fee. His other hats are not really relevant in a gaming context unless you're playing a high level game. Compare him with Doust Sullwood, an 8th level former PC. That's the kind of play that the Realms was originally designed for and can still easily accomodate.

You mean pull them out of the fire? Because that's pretty rare in games. But these guys should be doing that all the time - there's little reason not to.

In the fiction the big NPCs are pretty busy. If you ignore the fiction, they don't really have any need for their inflated abilities.

I think the CoM and other high-level spellcasting good-aligned allies are too powerful to be offering patronage. The moment you tell them the world's going to end, they should sigh, finish their manicures, and get to work. They can't metagame and assume that the published adventuring module is beatable by PCs - they have to act like powerful characters who don't want the world to end would act like.

That's not really the point, though. In a Realms game, you should be around their level by the time it's about saving the Realms. If it's about exploring ruins, smashing an evil cult or somesuch, that's work they can safely leave to PCs.

It's quite a different situation from, say, getting patronage from a high level general. Sure he can kick your butt, but he still can't take on a whole army by himself, prevent the witch king's madness, move magic portals around or otherwise solve all your problems. The most he can do is offer advice and maybe introduce you to contacts or give you weapons. (And probably not even magic weapons!)

Well yes. The Americans probably also could have nuked Dein Bien Phu in the 50s and helped France keep Vietnam (they considered it) too, but that escalates affairs a tad much. So it is in the Realms.

 

[eyebeams]

Feel free to elaborate more on any and all this (and anything that was mentioned)

The basic Realms Cthulhu scenario was this:

1) In prehistory, the Elder Gods battled with one another to the point of exhaustion. The shards of "magical" power left by this struggle is what created the Realms and associated multiverse -- it's all the "sweat" and "blood" of things like Azathoth and Ypg-Sothoth.

2) The current gods have some sense that they were a part of other *things*, and the eldest races have a dim memory ot the conflagration, as they were born duting its dying aeons. They know that there is no true moral order to the cosmos and *also* know that there are ancient entities waiting to awaken again. They live in the Underdark because it sheltered them from the last gasps of the cosmic struggle, when the world we know was almost in its current shape. Upper-worlders say that they kicked the Drow, Duergar and others into the Underdark, but the reverse is true; the Drow are the original, ancient line of elves and the surface-dwelling races descend from those who forgot their origins. Among other things, they have easier access to the precursor species who existed before they did and directly served the Elder Gods, like aboleths, mind flayers and shoggoths.

3) The Weave is not "real" magic. The Weave is an artifice created by the gods to bar the terrible cosmic energies of the Mythos. Real magic is the art of calling upon Mythos entities and mastering insane formulae -- and it is much more powerful than the intentionally crippled disciplines of divine and arcane magic.

4) The Mythos entities are outside of space and time as the Realms understand it. Even though millennia have passed, the entities of the Mythos have only experienced (from their inhuman perspective) a slight pause -- just enough to regain their strength.

5) As they grow more powerful their fitful, dreaming thoughts pierce the Weave. Cultists may worship them and try to hasten their return. Interestingly, the "evil" races are among the *least* likely to be involved in these cults, because they have the most accurate recollection of what's at stake. A demon-goddess like Lolth knows that it was once the equivalent of a mitochondria in the "body" of a Mythos entity and has no desire to be reabsorbed when the Elder Gods return.

Their mad dreams and the decaying Weave also allow people to master real magic. Suggestions during the seminar include it being able to blow through spell resistance and other defenses that are only of the Weave. This magic is classic Mythos magic, ramped up for the Realms' power level. That means that there aren't conventional limits on casting, but it does drive you insane.

6) The panel's suggestion was that creatures like Cthulhu *are* beatable in the Realms -- albiet by a very high level party. The Realms is more Robert E. Howard than straight Lovecraft. Both used the Mythos, but had different takes on how characters interact with them. The major mythos entities are probably not beatable, but their high priests and major servants are.

None of the preceding is canon. It just came from brainstorming between Ed and Ken Hite.

 

[BryonD]

Thanks for posting that.
Those are really some very nice very original spins on common ideas.
I really like it.

 

[Arnwyn]

D&D's spinoff fiction has been an independent side of things with its own fanbase for quite some time and shouldn;t be mistaken for the gaming side of the Realms.

I only wish this were true... but for the most part it's not.

I'm with you on the rest, though.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Unfortunately, most of us don't have access to his version of the Realms. So while criticisms of Mr. Greenwood might not be fair (unless its in his novels), criticisms of the published Realms are fair.



A bit like Eberron... but not like the published setting and not like the novels, some of which (like Elminster in Hell) are written by Mr. Greenwood. In the novels, the deities are just NPCs with uber-power.

Actually, the grey box setting contains the following snippet of text in the "Deities of the Realms" section:

"There are those in the Realms who reject the power of these self-claimed "deities," or choose to follow none of these gods as their own. The failure ofthe sky to fall upon the heads of these individuals indicates this is as good a course as pledging one's allegiance to a faith or deity."

It's only with the Avatar trilogy and its subsequent books (which, incidentally, detail circumstances that never happened in Ed's own games, and which he's stated several times he'd preferred had never happened to the Realms in general) that deities became interventionist.

As to the novels... well, you can't win 'em all. Ed blames TSR's Code of Conduct, but I think that the fault's also his, per books like Elminster in Hell, etc. I've never actually read an FR novel, though; the few pages of Return of the Archwizards I made it through convinced me to simply avoid them.

What do you mean by cipher?

I believe eyebeams is referring to what Ed discusses in the 2e Seven Sisters sourcebook, which is that the CoM should be used as models for your own Realms campaign's high-level NPCs or PCs... as examples of what characters do with their lives once they've reached lofty levels.

As for me: I run my Realms campaign with non-interventionist deities (actually, people don't really have concrete proof that the gods exist or what they are) and while there are high-level good-aligned NPCs in the world, they have their own fish to fry. It's important to keep in mind that there are still more numerous and powerful bad guys than good in the Realms: For nine Chosen of Mystra, we have twelve shade archwizards, dozens of phaerimm, hives full of beholders, undead spellcasting dragons, archliches, Thayan zulkirs, et cetera. I just always assume that one or more of those guys is keeping the CoM or whoever else busy.

 

[Nightfall]

*only minds the useage or rather overusage and justification that OA is somehow a guy with pull in the deific ranks* The guy couldn't figure out how to photocopy his butt without someone showing him how.

I also want to know why Demon Princes, powers in their own rights, are so darned nerfed compared to dragons.

 

[eyebeams]

I only wish this were true... but for the most part it's not.

Well, the game setting has to be compatible with the fiction and vice versa, but at this point they really are distinct audiences and one shouldn't assume that games to play in the Realms are supposed to be just like a novel set in the Realms.

This occasionally gets all wacky. First you get the Time of Troubles, which was brought in to make the Realms 2e compliant. Then you have the novels of the event -- and *then* you have the adventures based on the novels. The impetus for the ToT was 2e's revisions and to start the new edition with a bang, but it was primarily implemented through novels and secondarily implemented through adventures.

The setting has to make these compromises in print, but there's no reason gamers have to follow suit.

Oh -- and IMO, R'lyeh is Evermeet.

 

[eyebeams]

Thanks for posting that.
Those are really some very nice very original spins on common ideas.
I really like it.

Ken Hite and Ed Greenwood, man. Actually, someone should pay one or both of them to turn this into a real D&D setting.

 

[xmanii]

The basic Realms Cthulhu scenario was this:

3) The Weave is not "real" magic. The Weave is an artifice created by the gods to bar the terrible cosmic energies of the Mythos. Real magic is the art of calling upon Mythos entities and mastering insane formulae -- and it is much more powerful than the intentionally crippled disciplines of divine and arcane magic.

Thanks!

I really like that idea.

 

[xmanii]

Ken Hite and Ed Greenwood, man. Actually, someone should pay one or both of them to turn this into a real D&D setting.

No doubt!