Is it just me, or is evil winning in the Forgotten Realms?

[Brakkart]

*reads all the comments and grins* Glad it's not just me who is happy to see this trend then. and yeah, I think a lot of it is to do with the old guard NPC good guys now retiring due to old age more than anything, and also other interests. Not sure I can see Sembia trying to invade Cormyr.. at least not yet, too much cost for too little return at the moment. Wait 5 years for the fields to be resown and a lot of the rebuilding to be underway/finished and yeah, with as many as got killed in the recent wars, Cormyr is going to look awfully tempting to those mercenary armies of Sembia's!

I'm very interested to see how Phil Athans handles this Watercourse Trilogy though. I mean I can't think of a single power group in the realms who wouldn't be interested in controlling/destroying that canal, with its potential to radically alter trade across the continent.

The Zhents will certainly want it, they are already insinuating themselves into chondath (the FRCS states that Fzoul wishes to gain control of Arrabar and Reth in the next few years), and they have an army just down the coast from Innarlith in Teldorn Darkhope's Banites in Mintar.

If the Zhents want it to control trade, you can bet the Red Wizards will also, they have an enclave in Arrabar and since they rely on their fleet to supply many of their enclaves around the Inner Sea, what better than a canal that will allow them to project their naval power out to the Shining Sea and Sea of Swords. I can see various other trade groups (Iron Throne) having an interest also, and the Harpers will certainly be concerned. comsidering this is on the Lake of Steam/Vilhon Reach region, that also potentially draws in The Twisted Rune, the Emerald Enclave and House Extaminos, as well as the entire nation of Sespech of course.

I haven't even read a novel of this series yet, and I could already run a campaign just based on the idea of it!

 

[Nightfall]

Evil will always win...because good is dumb.

And seeing as Al is a major player in the Abyss, you should heed his words.

*doesn't believe for a SECOND Halaster is no longer evil. Merely he's just keeping to himself more after doing a favor for Mystra and got Chosen status for it*

 

[Faraer]

Basically, a combination of the Code of Ethics, the situation in the Realms being complex and not laid out in any one place, the books department's dubious ideas about which characters to showcase, and Chinese whispers created a false impression among some that the Realms was good-dominated, and the 3E Realms has overcompensated by injecting even more evil into a world already finely balanced -- not to mention the way it cynically advertised by playing to that misapprehension.

 

[Nightfall]

Faraer,

FR was balanced?!!

 

[wingsandsword]

3E Realms has overcompensated by injecting even more evil into a world already finely balanced

I love the Realms, I'm a big fan, but I'm not going to pretend for a moment that there was some fine masterful balance of good and evil beforehand.

The good guys always won, the TSR Code said they had to. The big famous NPC's would always come along to stomp down the mechanations of various huge evil organizations who you'd think would have gotten tired of trying to take over the world after failing so many times. There is a reason that so many Realms bashers put the Realms down by saying there is no reason to PC in that setting, since Elminster, Drizzt & friends are always there to make everything right. Now the heroes are making mistakes, sometimes aren't in the right place at the right time, and some are dead or out of action.

 

[Nightfall]

Glad you saw the light Wings. Now go out there and snuff it out!

 

[kanithardm]

So much evil

DMCs roll up 40th level characters
PC:Okay
DM:They die.
PC:Why?
DM:Because FR is now so evil negative energy flows through the land killing all threats.
PC:Then we roll up 1st level characters.
DM:They die too.
PC:But there 1st level, howare they a threat?!!!
DM:They don't die from the negative energy you idiot.
PC:Then how do they die?
DM:They are in FR. One of the thousands of evils will eventually kill them and if they don't when they go up a few leels they'll die from the negative energy.
PC:Then can we play in Grayhawk?
DM:Sure, but the FR evils are so powerful and there are so many that a lot of them went to the other settings.
PC:Can we be evil?
DM:No Elminster'll kill you.
PC:Arrgh...

 

[Faraer]

I know for a fact that the underlying good–evil, law–chaos balance is there. I've come to understand it through the hundreds of Realms sourcebooks, novels, and magazine articles, in Ed's exquisitely wrought historical structures, in conversations with him and others. Stating otherwise is flat-out misinformation, based at best on partial and mistaken interpretation of the sources. The factors I mention skewed the way the Realms was presented, not how the Realms work -- I was never aware of the idea that the Realms was good-dominated till I read it online.

The 'big famous NPCs' can't possibly 'stomp down the mechanations of various huge evil organizations' because they are greatly outnumbered by neutral and evil characters (even in the very partial published sources); because they're constrained by responsibilities, pacts and agreements, and so forth; and because there are dozens of times more evil plots going on at any one time than any given handful of NPCs could be aware of, let alone counter in person. What we see in the novels is a tiny, tiny fraction of what goes on, as you see from a glance at the 'year in a life' and current clack in the Old Grey Box, FOR4, etc.

I've had this out in great detail several times, and the case that the Realms is good-dominated collapses as soon as you look at the sources and what they imply in any depth and detail, let alone the exhaustive notes on how the Realms works that's been published lately as wizards.com "Realmslore" and on candlekeep.com.

 

[Nightfall]

*still doesn't believe the realms were balanced...and especially not on the good/evil access...*

 

[Faraer]

Because this is a matter of nuances and underlying structures and millions of words of lore, it isn't as simple to explain why this is a misconception as with some of the other canards about the Realms -- such as the idea that Elminster is a self-insertion 'Ed's favourite character' -- that are easily debunked and less often put about now than they were several years back. Though as I say, I've never seen a credible attempt to argue the 'Realms are good-dominated' thing done by anyone with much knowledge of the setting.