Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
How to reboot the Forgotten Realms (+)
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Uta-napishti" data-source="post: 8946997" data-attributes="member: 7026422"><p>Basically, you don't want to reboot the Realms, you want to <strong>remove</strong> all of the damaging reboots. TSR and later Wizards kept coming up with stupid cataclysms to create in-game justifications for the changes in rules / classes etc that happened between D&D editions. </p><p></p><p><strong>1st to 2nd Ed</strong>. If you've ever seen the 2ed Realms Adventures book (Female Paladin riding a Unicorn) the contents are basically a giant set of monkey patches to the Setting in book form (a whole Chapter on class updates, and another chapter only on the introduction of Specialty Preists (i.e. Strongly Domain Tied Clerics) for the whole pantheon. The Avatar series of novels was the longer and more convoluted story of how a bunch of Gods tramping around Faerun murdering each other is responsible for all the 1E->2E changes.</p><p></p><p>Similarly, the whole Spellplague was the justification for the changes required by going to <strong>D&D 4E</strong>, and was WotC's excuse to toss anything they wanted out of the setting, smoosh all the planes and gods together, add some new scary big bads, and move everything else around.</p><p></p><p>They did it again with the "Second Sundering" which was the transition to <strong>5E</strong>. WotC was trying to basically claw back in the direction of the original realms by tossing back in what they had tossed out ( and vice versa ) during the Spellplague. They also said the Gods aren't able to just show up again anymore ( essentially banning another Time of Troubles). Having basically reversed the 4E changes, and having made 2E-like changes harder to do, it seems that WotC had maybe learned its lesson? </p><p></p><p>Basically Wizards had in the end figured out what you did, that Greenwood's original realms are more interesting and have more space for adventure without the pointless bolted-on aftermarket cataclysms. </p><p></p><p>Cataclysms are not per se bad: see Dragonlance for a well integrated cataclysm that has human protagonists, and well examined consequences instead of revolving on deities faffing about breaking things to squish the setting into new game mechanics. </p><p></p><p>I personally think that taking a setting and screwing around with story to justify mechanical rules changes is just an outmoded idea. Just hand wave edition changes or retconn the minimum needed (it was always like this). This is part of the maturation of the hobby. Most fans now understand it's the stories at your table that count, and the goal of an RPG setting is to be evocative while leaving blank spaces for play. The final goal is not to create a dense 4000 year timeline of faux-historical canon that people can try to out-nerd each other by memorizing.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Uta-napishti, post: 8946997, member: 7026422"] Basically, you don't want to reboot the Realms, you want to [B]remove[/B] all of the damaging reboots. TSR and later Wizards kept coming up with stupid cataclysms to create in-game justifications for the changes in rules / classes etc that happened between D&D editions. [B]1st to 2nd Ed[/B]. If you've ever seen the 2ed Realms Adventures book (Female Paladin riding a Unicorn) the contents are basically a giant set of monkey patches to the Setting in book form (a whole Chapter on class updates, and another chapter only on the introduction of Specialty Preists (i.e. Strongly Domain Tied Clerics) for the whole pantheon. The Avatar series of novels was the longer and more convoluted story of how a bunch of Gods tramping around Faerun murdering each other is responsible for all the 1E->2E changes. Similarly, the whole Spellplague was the justification for the changes required by going to [B]D&D 4E[/B], and was WotC's excuse to toss anything they wanted out of the setting, smoosh all the planes and gods together, add some new scary big bads, and move everything else around. They did it again with the "Second Sundering" which was the transition to [B]5E[/B]. WotC was trying to basically claw back in the direction of the original realms by tossing back in what they had tossed out ( and vice versa ) during the Spellplague. They also said the Gods aren't able to just show up again anymore ( essentially banning another Time of Troubles). Having basically reversed the 4E changes, and having made 2E-like changes harder to do, it seems that WotC had maybe learned its lesson? Basically Wizards had in the end figured out what you did, that Greenwood's original realms are more interesting and have more space for adventure without the pointless bolted-on aftermarket cataclysms. Cataclysms are not per se bad: see Dragonlance for a well integrated cataclysm that has human protagonists, and well examined consequences instead of revolving on deities faffing about breaking things to squish the setting into new game mechanics. I personally think that taking a setting and screwing around with story to justify mechanical rules changes is just an outmoded idea. Just hand wave edition changes or retconn the minimum needed (it was always like this). This is part of the maturation of the hobby. Most fans now understand it's the stories at your table that count, and the goal of an RPG setting is to be evocative while leaving blank spaces for play. The final goal is not to create a dense 4000 year timeline of faux-historical canon that people can try to out-nerd each other by memorizing. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
How to reboot the Forgotten Realms (+)
Top