D&D General How to reboot the Forgotten Realms (+)

[Stormonu]

If they just made the Grey FR box set available in POD on DrivethruRPG, I'd take that.

I think that if all the main FR campaign settings (1E, 2E, 3E, 4E, 5E) were available as evergreen PODs on Drivethru, that should allow folks to use the setting version they want. Future adventures could either present boxed text for setting in the different version, or keep it loose enough it could be used in any of the five with minimal change.

 

[Clint_L]

I don't think we have to worry about the future of the Forgotten Realms setting, given that the upcoming film is set there. WotC clearly sees it as the default setting for the game, and a vehicle to build the IP around. And I think it is a good idea to have one generic setting for most of the adventures, and then include hooks if you want to use them in Eberron, Tal'Dorei, etc. I might update it to include specific locations from the film that aren't already in it.

 

[James Gasik]

It would be nice to time travel back to the Grey Box era. No Time of Troubles. No Returned Abeir.

2e was a crazy, gonzo era of D&D that I dearly love, but some of the things that happened after the Grey Box made the Realms a bit too crazy gonzo for me. It's hard to reconcile a story like The Crystal Shard with Elminster's plane bopping, the entire Cyrinishad debacle, Cadderly's wacky adventures (even though I like Cadderly!), an Elven space fleet dock at Evermeet, or a Spelljammer dropping in on Waterdeep to dispense wheel lock pistols (I mean, we know Ed loves him some firearms, but they could exist as part of the setting and not feel like this tacked on thing), or stapling on "like this real world region, but fantasy" areas like Zakhara, Kara-Tur, or Maztica.

I mean, I like Zakhara, but the Forgotten Realms already had Calimshan and Anauroch, so Zakhara really feels uneccessary.

Thanks to the novels, we're led to believe that there is some Realms-destroying catastrophe about to descend upon the land every week, between Gods killing Gods, dead Gods rising, powerful sentient artifacts from another reality, rampaging dragon flights, pseudo-Mongol hordes, super powerful liches (some of whom command entire nations of evil wizards), and, at any moment, a forgotten gate could pop open and dispense an entire hoard of orcs out of nowhere (sorry Blizzard, Forgotten Realms did it first!).

Let alone feeling like every major event is solved by the actions of S-Tier NPC's who overpopulate the setting, but (generally) don't try to take over (except when they do) because of a "magical cold war".

 

[Andvari]

I'm already running a game in 1340 DR.

 

[S'mon]

Maybe it's an unpopular opinion lately, but I actually like the Forgotten Realms setting. However, every time I start a campaign set in the Realms I see myself going back to the Old Grey Box.

This is what I did for my 5e FR campaign - 1e Grey Box + 1e/2e Bloodstone Lands, started in 1358 DR, up to late 1361 DR now.

 

[Alby87]

To me, they have already rebooted that. D&D General - Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide: Is it (stealthy) a reboot of the Forgotten Realms?

This is why the Sword Coast guide is so thin: you don't have to know every single thing happened to the realms in the past to enjoy it.

 

[Yora]

I think the AD&D Campaign Set and several of the FR series splatbooks are pretty great (Savage Frontier, Bloodstone Lands, Dreams of the Red Wizards).

The problem is that to reboot the setting in a way that captures the qualities of the original, we would first have to reboot AD&D. Having only the original 7 character races and the orignal 10 character classes and the limitations of magic seems crucial to creating the feel of the setting. It also needs an oldschool exploration system in which nonmagical resources matter and a combat system and monster stats simple enough to handle random encounters on the fly. I don't see WotC being in a position where they could produce such a game, unless they would make it a completely separate brand from their D&D.
Releasing it as a campaign setting for Old-School Essentials Advanced Rules could work.

I would limit the published setting to the northern half of Faerun. Western Heartlands, Cormyr, Sembia, Aglarond, Thay, and everything north of that. The Southern half was pretty much not covered at all in the 1st edition sources. These are places where foreign merchants come from and the occasional mysterious wizard. But they are places that are only occasionally heard of, but not seen.

Obviously this setting would exist in an alternate continuity in which the Time of Troubles never happens. Otherwise there would be no point to the entire exercise.

Where the greateat potential lies is in making the setting actually look and feel based on 13th and 14th century Europe, as is stated in the introduction to the campaign set. None of the Rennaisance style of 2nd edition and the Dungeon Punk that followed. 100 Years War armor styles, woodblock printing, Hanseatic League style merchant guilds, and things like that.

Also, keep and reinforce the notion that "civilization is something of a novelty" in the northern half of Faerun. Cormyr is the exception as a unified kingdom under a single king. Impiltur, Damara, and Aglarond are more confedrations pledging allegiance to a king than centralized states.

And keep the human focus. The elves are pretty much gone. Other than Evereska, there are no elven settlements in Faerun at all. Only a few individuals or small bands who still roam around on their own. Dwarven civilzation has been shattered. King Harbrom of Adbar is the last true dwarven king deserving that title. There are some old dwarven strongholds in the Spine of the World and the Earthspur Mountains that still have some dwarves living in them, but most dwarves that other people will ever encounter are minorities in human cities.

Orcs, goblins, and giants are rare, with orcs playing a prominent role only in the Spine of the World and the lands immediate to its south. And of course a whole can of worms on their own. To recapture the original setting they need to regularly clash violently with human settlements, but they also should be more than an entire race of green-skinned marauders.

In the end, just return back to the original material from the first 2 years before the renfairigpfication of AD&D, and take its statements about the world as fact and follow through with them.

 

[Firwood]

Foreword: I am a player of AD&D 2ed and am very fond of the material published for this system.
I would keep the setting as it was before the publication of the Campaign Setting for the 3ed (still a truly extraordinary manual!!).
I would use 1369 DR as the starting year, immediately after Time of Troubles.
Of the 3ed material, which I think is excellent, I would keep the details of the races, languages, prestige classes (turned into kits) etc. while I would completely ignore anything published after 3ed.
On the level of events, I would always stop at 1369 or 1370 DR, avoiding the introduction of events such as the reappearance of the city of Shade and others.

 

[James Gasik]

Foreword: I am a player of AD&D 2ed and am very fond of the material published for this system.
I would keep the setting as it was before the publication of the Campaign Setting for the 3ed (still a truly extraordinary manual!!).
I would use 1369 AD as the starting year, immediately after Time of Troubles.
Of the 3ed material, which I think is excellent, I would keep the details of the races, languages, prestige classes (turned into kits) etc. while I would completely ignore anything published after 3ed.
On the level of events, I would always stop at 1369 or 1370 AD, avoiding the introduction of events such as the reappearance of the city of Shade and others.

Yeah, the Shades are something I could do without. During the 4e era, I played in some excellent Living Forgotten Realms adventures that used Returned Netheril as the bad guys, so I won't say I didn't care for the metaplot development, but if there's one thing I can attest to, is that Toril has no shortage of BBEG's to choose from, so adding more seems kind of messed up. I mean think about it, you got:

*Megalomaniacal spellcasters.
*Thay (or is that the same thing?)
*The Zhentarim (these guys refuse to die!)
*Gods.
*The Cult of the Dragon.
*Drow.
*Interlopers from other planes/outer space (I see you, Acererak!)
*Monsters (like, normal monsters, Trolls, Or...Owlbears, that sort of thing)
*Dragons
*Ancient Evils (Phaerimm)
*Demons and Devils (let's put the Fey'ri and the Tanarukk here)
*Corrupt Nobles (is there any other kind?)
*Jumped-up Thieves' Guilds (Fire Knives, for example)

And most of this was before we also had the Horde, Returned Netheril, the Abolethic Sovereignty, the Cult of Moander, and anything else I'm forgetting at the moment.

 

[schneeland]

I would limit the published setting to the northern half of Faerun. Western Heartlands, Cormyr, Sembia, Aglarond, Thay, and everything north of that. The Southern half was pretty much not covered at all in the 1st edition sources. These are places where foreign merchants come from and the occasional mysterious wizard. But they are places that are only occasionally heard of, but not seen.

So just to double check: Calimshan/Calimport would be out in this version? (I think it was described in Empire of the Sands, wasn't it?)