Has traditional Forgotten Realms been "mined out"?

[ruleslawyer]

Just a question that may relate to the changes to the Realms in 4e:

The Forgotten Realms has now been around a long time, and it has had a *bunch* of supplements. Probably more than any other setting. Probably way more.

Has the Forgotten Realms as it now stands reached the point where designers either go into esoteric areas that are of little interest except to completists, or have to revisit material that they've already covered once or twice or more times before?

Cheers!

IMHO, absolutely not. As evidence, I cite Serpent Kingdoms, Lost Empires of Faerun, and Power of Faerun, all supplements that are about as 100% true to the flavor and ethos of the Realms as possible, but came out well into 3.5.

IMO, there are two big problems with the bloat of Realms material: 1) a raft of supplements that had little in the way of Realms flavor; and 2) novels. The latter issue speaks for itself; as for the former, I hate to belittle the work of certain writers, but as far as I'm concerned, anything that didn't come from Ed Greenwood, Steve Schend, Eric Boyd, or Rich Baker has a high likelihood of being write-off-able. I know this sounds a bit purist, but here would be my acceptable list of "authentic" Realms sourcebooks:

-The gray box
FR1 Waterdeep and the North
FR4 The Magister
FR5 The Savage North
FR6 Dreams of the Red Wizards
FR11 Dwarves Deep
FR13 Anauroch
FRA hardback
The Volo's Guides
City of Splendors boxed set
Ruins of Undermountain boxed set
Ruins of Myth Drannor boxed set
FOR2 Drow of the Underdark
FOR4 Code of the Harpers
Cloak and Dagger
Ed's "Everwinking Eye" column
3e FRCS
Silver Marches
Unapproachable East
Serpent Kingdoms
Lords of Darkness
Lost Empires of Faerun
Power of Faerun
City of Splendors: Waterdeep hardcover
Eric's Impiltur bits in Champions of Ruin

Now, that's a BIG chunk of material, but it does theoretically leave room for more. To be honest, if Ed would just pop open the shelves and give us access to some of his material (I get the impression that a lot of the stuff that has come out in supplements is material that Ed had sitting in his closet for years), that would be fine by me. His Realmslore online column, and the Everwinking Eye series before that (and the FR columns that Ed wrote in Dragon before the boxed set) have been more valuable to me than much of the full-blown books that have come out since.

 

[SPECTRE666]

Heres a little something from the ''The One and only Ask the Realms Designers/Authors Thread#3" http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=702942&page=22 Its the Thread where Rich is getting bombbarded by irate Realms Fans. Pay attention to what he says about Mystra.

I belive that they are removing most of Ed Greenwoods fluff and flavor from the Realms. Mystra check, Mystras Chosen check, and the Weave check. All gone sorry bye bye. She is to powerful they say.

Just wait 10 years, another gang of Designers will destroy what Rich and crew are destroying now!

 

[howandwhy99]

In another thread I mentioned that FR is not "played out", but that is has been "published out".

The only reason to buy new FR books in 4e will be fore mechanical statblocks. That's not a huge incentive.

I like that world creation will be brought back to FR. I think it will spur many folks imaginations.

For those who hate to see it go: just remember, all those books from 87-07 are still available.

 

[PeterWeller]

Crystal Shard.... wizard with world altering power. barbarian invasions. death of an ancient dragon.

Moonshae Isles trilogy. death of the goddess. lots of big changes on the setting.

I believe that you're mistaken.

Isolated corners of Faerun with little influence on the heartlands, and in the case of the Icewind Dale trilogy, nothing outside the realm of what a single adventuring party could accomplish.

I think you're mistaken.

Also, Daztur, what makes good novel protagonists poor NPCs? I've used many of them as NPCs in my FR campaigns, and never have they stolen the spotlight from the PCs. In fact, my players have always appreciated the idea that there are other groups out adventuring, some more powerful than them, some less. A good well rounded character is a good well rounded character no matter what the source.

 

[Daebryn]

Crystal Shard.... wizard with world altering power. barbarian invasions. death of an ancient dragon.

Yeah, but exactly how much of the world did that wizard actually alter? One small little frozen section way up in the far northern corner. Same thing with the barbarian invasion. Who did it really affect? A couple of small towns also in the far north. And the death of an ancient dragon? Which dragon are you refering to? Icingdeath or Shimmergloom? I don't recall either being classified as ancient. And neither of them really affected the world outside of their own small areas of influence (Icewind Dale/Spine of the World and Mithral Hall respectively).

None of these are really all that world shaking of events really.

Moonshae Isles trilogy. death of the goddess. lots of big changes on the setting.

The death of a goddess? I don't remember any deaths, but then its been quite a while since i've read that trilogy. I assume you mean the Earthmother, a goddess that isn't worshipped anywhere else on Faerun except on that one small group of islands off the coast. Yeah it could cause a lot of big changes, but only for that particular small group of islands.

Again, not really a world shaking event.

Therefore,

I believe that you're mistaken.

 

[frankthedm]

Many people--players as well as game designers and authors--perceived that Mystra (and her Chosen) were simply too strong. She's seen as far and away the most powerful deity, and her Chosen are clearly the most powerful heroes. Authors actually have to deliberately account for each of the Chosen when they're telling big stories and explain what they're doing or what they're not doing and why.

Sounds like the Justice League’s issue with Superman.

 

[BlueBlackRed]

I don't think it's been mined too much. You can add and remove potential plots and stories pretty easily without needing to explore a whole new area of the world.

I think like that like Dragonlance, it's had too many "cooks" modifying the world or adding their own thing to the point where it's no longer recognizable.

Greenwood's original campaign struck a chord with a lot of gamers.
Add in nearly 20 years of novels and sourcebooks by dozens and dozens of authors and you have a giant mess.