Yeah, but that's when you tell him (or her), "I'm the DM, this is my Realms, ask Elminster and he'll tell you the same."
Gray Box, 4E, for me.
How is FR changing with 4E?
- Thread starter Hawke
- Start date
Yeah, but that's when you tell him (or her), "I'm the DM, this is my Realms, ask Elminster and he'll tell you the same."
Gray Box, 4E, for me.
I've never understood this mentality. Probably never will.
It's YOUR game. I, as a DM, have made plenty of changes to my home Realms, and I've never felt that I can't put things in, or change things, or that I'm a slave to the canon of the Realms.
Ah, so problem players are the fault of a setting. It's equally possible to run into The Greyhawk Player, or The Eberron Player, or The Planescape Player. Of course, what I do is just explain that things in my game may or may not be as they are in the books. If the problem player doesn't like this, he's free to leave.
Anyway, I guessed I liked detailed settings, lively NPC's, cultures and religions that felt real, conflicts that felt like they could really be happening, conflicts taking place in the background that didn't involve the PC's, or could if they wanted to get involved, opportunities for adventure at all levels of play. WoTC felt otherwise, and think that people don't want detail, or interesting NPC's. They just want fetch and carry quests from Wizards in Taverns. Which is what they are giving us with the new 'Realms'
Ah well. I've got my old books, and Golarion.
This too, there is no reason you can't run the old Realms with 4th Ed.
I've converted my ongoing (3 years now) Planescape campaign to 4th Ed with no problems.
Me too, Elminster was taken out long ago by Asmodeus around the time of the Yamun Kahan invasion, and Drizzt has been working the streets of Calimport as rough trade for some years now.
Mustrum_Ridcully
Legend
I've been thinking about this for some time - of course I can change what I want, I am the DM. There are not so many FR fans that require me to slavishly follow the "Lore"... So it is a psychological problem.
But it might be more:
I think the error is assuming it is my game. It is not. I might run the game, but I want the players to enjoy it. And a FR fan won't enjoy a game as much if he doesn't know which of what he knows is still true or not.
At best, it can be confusing, but at worst, he is outright disappointed that he can't play in the real realms.
If I say "I am running a Forgotten Realms campaign", and don't use the FR lore, that's false advertising to my players. I am getting the hopes of any FR fan up that he gets to interact with the setting he loves, but in truth, I am just giving him the option to interact with a setting that superficially resembles FR.
Nah, then I rather play a homebrew or a setting where nobody is emotionally invested in yet. (except maybe me)
And a setting with established time lines and events that also goes on with the future thanks to various books is a great constraint on story-telling. Ever played NWN 2: Mask of the Betrayer? I liked it very much, except for two things:
- The spirit energy mini subsystem
- The fact that I can't even try to break down the Wall of the Faithless around the City of Judgement. That greatly sucked - but it couldn't happen, because they wanted to give the "appearance" of the game falling into the regular continuity. If I ever run an FR campaign (and the wall isn't down yet in 4E), that's the goal of my next campaign. (And this shows how good the game was, actually - I hated the wall that much!
)
The Little Raven
First Post
Portals opening and dropping in random people from other planes of existence is the quintessential Greenwood MacGuffin. I mean, it's how he explains how elves, orcs, and all kinds of races got there, not to mention the interloper gods like Tyr.
Mercule
Adventurer
It's a matter of where to draw the line between "I'm playing FR, but changing some things" and "I'm home-brewing and pulling some FR concepts". I'm not a Realms player, so I'll use Greyhawk. Even then, I only consider myself a casual fan.
If the DM tells me we're using Greyhawk, that implies certain things to me. If I say my character is of Flan decent, was born in Verbobonc, served in the Shield Lands against the forces of Iuz, and settled in Dyvers, the DM should understand that. If he says, well, IMC Iuz was defeated twenty years ago and that's where the fairies live, now, I'm okay with that. If he says the human races are more polarized and there are no Flan west of the Nyr Dyv, I can deal with that, too. Dyvers was leveled? Okay. Verbobonc was a silly name and it's called "Fredville"? Fine. All of these? Hang on, now. How much info can I assume from the box set? Likewise, if he says, "What's a Flan?", I'm going to be more than a bit concerned that he's using just a map with city names on it.
I really don't care what color underwear Mordenkainen wears. I think the people who do are a bit... unbalanced. Somewhere in there, though, is a point of miscommunication waiting to happen. Sometimes, the expanded history for a setting is pretty cool, too. It's pretty tempting to say, "Let's just use that, unless I say otherwise," which can just snowball the problem.
I don't want to set myself up for that sort of issue. Especially, if the history and extra meat really is pretty cool. But, it's a set up for bad assumptions.
The Little Raven
First Post
A god of justice being deceived by a god of lies into believing his best friend has betrayed him in a time of need, and then doing what a god of justice would do: demand justice... that just strikes me as good ol' divine tragedy.
Hawke
Explorer
I'm trying to decide whether or not I should get into it. On one hand, it seems like a good time to do so and I like the 4E system and really want more. On the other hand, I've hated FR's massive NPC and history in the past. I always felt (which may be my issue) that with FR there's too much and too little leeway for the DM to go where they want with the world. Seems very static and only changing when novels/wotc does their stuff. Makes it hard for a DM to keep up especially with players who read all the books and are well versed. Seems like some may have changed with this itiration...
Perhaps I should skip the Campaign Setting and just pick up the Player's Guide for some new crunch?
Thanks for all the replies, I've been well educated about some of the changes... I'm eager to hear additional objective comments once the campaign setting book is out this month.
Perhaps I should skip the Campaign Setting and just pick up the Player's Guide for some new crunch?
Thanks for all the replies, I've been well educated about some of the changes... I'm eager to hear additional objective comments once the campaign setting book is out this month.
To sum it up. WotC decided to blow up the Realms to cater to people that hate the Realms because of it's detailed history, too many deities, and too many high level NPC's among other things. The setting has quite literally been blown to peices, and the time line has been advanced 100 years. The really bad part is that has been precipitated by some of the more powerful FR deities suddenly start acting as if they are characters in a bad soap opera instead of the hyper-intelligent powerful beings they are supposed to be. It's got a love triangle, betrayal, etc. It's really bad, amateurish, and forced. In short, it's sort of thing you'd expect to see from a homebrew campaign created by a 13 year old with ADD, not a highly popular, richly detailed setting ran by a (supposedly) professional RPG company.
