D&D 5E How will the Forgotten Realms be handled?

[Mouseferatu]

Fizban... Dragons of Autumn Twilight, 1984.

Elminster... the oldest actual appearance I can find is in Dragon Magazine (Pages from the Mages III), also in 1984.

Judging by the fact that that's the THIRD in the series, I'm guessing you are correct.

Thanks for looking that up.

It also depends on whether one is only counting from published sources or not. Ed, IIRC, has said that Elminster was one of the first FR characters he created, and as FR (as a setting for his fiction) predates D&D...

 

[Pentegarn]

I realize this is tangential to your overall point--which makes perfect sense, whether or not one feels the same way --but didn't Elminster predate Fizban by quite some time?

No, Fizban was the avatar of Paladine. He appeared in a novel published in 1984. The Forgotten Realms was published somewhere around '86 to '89? Somewhere around there.


EDIT: Nevermind, Boarstorm has it covered.

 

[Remathilis]

What have I done with the god puns?! It'd take a Myrkul to stop it now!

Thankfully, it stopped before everyone was worked up into a Lathander.

 

[Plissken]

Anything on Mystra returning to restore the Weave?

 

[Hussar]

Ao. I'm having a tough time Masking my reactions to these god awful puns.

 

[Atomo]

Anything on Mystra returning to restore the Weave?

This already happened at the very end of 4th edition. Praised most people, not me. I like the Weave, and I am fine with a goddess of magic, but Mystra is very überpower to me, even for a goddess...I wish that could be handled as Ed did in his home campaign... Mystra was goddess of magic, not goddess of the Weave. Lurue was the "living" personification of the Weave (in the sense of everything in the nature, cosmos, whatever is interconnected).

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I thought I'm Moander in and leave this thought ...

Although I personally like the Grey Box era best, and think the 3E FRCS was also a great product, what the Realms needs most is what I fear will not happen: a divorce between the novels and the campaign setting. Let authors continue to write novels and do whatever they'd like, but don't have those characters or events carry over into the RPG setting. That linkage more than anything else, I think, has damaged the Realms and turned off many people to what is otherwise a very deep and evocative setting.

But it won't happen -- apparently there are a lot of fans out there who like the linkage between the novels and the campaign setting. I'd like to know who they are, because I've never met one or seen their posts, but apparently they are driving the marketing decisions.

(And as to authors ... I'm not an RAS fan, but don't think everything he's done is bad, mostly merely average. Ed Greenwood, though -- man, for a guy who can develop great set dressing and setting details, he cannot put together stories or characters that deserve to see print. I just listened to the latest WotC podcast which was an interview with Ed about his latest novel, and it was the most painful thing I've ever heard. Much as I dislike Drizzt, Elmunchkin needed to be retired about two decades ago. I simply can't reconcile Ed's great Realmslore articles with his absolutely craptastic novels.)

 

[Evenglare]

You guys act as though the novels are being forced on us. I can't say that I have ever met anyone who used all the canon of every novel and suppliment in the realms. Hell, I can't say that about ANY campaign setting. Change things the way you want to change them. Some of you seem to be under the notion of NOVELS BE DAMNED THIS IS HOW I LIKE THE REALMS! As if you are being pushed to some extreme when almost everyone does this automatically without the vile hatred. Don't like Drizzt? Don't use him. Eliminate him from your version of the realms. There is no realms police that are going to come and kidnap you from erasing a fictional character in a fictional world. The novels are simply a shared interpretation of the realms. It's quite ironic that some people complain about conflicting thing in the novel, which assumes that when the authors wrote those novels they were writing their characters in the realms THEY knew, and yet that's what you guys are doing as well when you change the realms. You are conflicting with the story and changing it the way you like because, screw it! It's what you want to do! And that's AWESOME! That's what the novelists do with this fictional world, and kudos to them! I never let canon get me down, and believe me when I run or play star wars campaigns there's a lot there, or any other published setting. Somethings I like, and somethings I don't, but to just HATE something, it seems like so much effort to put on what is essentially make belief.

 

[TwoSix]

You guys act as though the novels are being forced on us. I can't say that I have ever met anyone who used all the canon of every novel and suppliment in the realms. Hell, I can't say that about ANY campaign setting. Change things the way you want to change them. Some of you seem to be under the notion of NOVELS BE DAMNED THIS IS HOW I LIKE THE REALMS! As if you are being pushed to some extreme when almost everyone does this automatically without the vile hatred. Don't like Drizzt? Don't use him. Eliminate him from your version of the realms. There is no realms police that are going to come and kidnap you from erasing a fictional character in a fictional world. The novels are simply a shared interpretation of the realms. It's quite ironic that some people complain about conflicting thing in the novel, which assumes that when the authors wrote those novels they were writing their characters in the realms THEY knew, and yet that's what you guys are doing as well when you change the realms. You are conflicting with the story and changing it the way you like because, screw it! It's what you want to do! And that's AWESOME! That's what the novelists do with this fictional world, and kudos to them! I never let canon get me down, and believe me when I run or play star wars campaigns there's a lot there, or any other published setting. Somethings I like, and somethings I don't, but to just HATE something, it seems like so much effort to put on what is essentially make belief.

All this complaining; you're making a Tempus in a teapot.

 

[Evenglare]

All this complaining; you're making a Tempus in a teapot.

My intent was not to complain, sorry if it came off that way. I want to liberate you guys from the hatred of novels that really don't have to affect you. But if you take it as complaining, that's alright. It wasn't my intent though! Good gaming!