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

[Vraille Darkfang]

Can you give me any stories of the problems or pitfalls of such a move? Do advise for or against it?

1. Realms is High Magic. Higher than 2nd ed standard & probablly a little higher than 3rd ed standard.

2. Let heroes be heroes. Elminster (or other NPC) might show up once or twice, but he might help the party in some minor way, or he might not. Never let him fight the party's battles for him. Much of the venom directed at Elminster is from people who feel he 'does' everything, thus nothing let to do for the party.

3. Sages. The Realms has a lot on info built up over 20+ years. Some people might know more than you. Don't let them boss you around. Once you DM it, it's your world & is changed from the 'official' Realms. Make sure your players know that.

4. Realms is big. Elminster, Drizzt, Seven Sisters, etc can't be everyone. There is adventure enough to go around. And big enough the party won't have a guest NPC of the week (and let's welcome the Simbul as this weeks guest star).

5. I played FR for years. have about everything published up until 3.5 came out. (Still read the novels, paperbacks anyway).

 

[wingsandsword]

But that wasn't always the case of official material coming out of TSR, and the "don't let evil win" memo from TSR's days seems to pretty much be an established fact.

I think this may have hit the nail on the head.

There are two viewpoints of the Realms in conflict here, people who are fans, but casual fans, like myself. They like the setting. They read some sourcebooks they like, they might read a novel or two. They know the setting well enough to run a game in it, or to really enjoy a game set in it they are playing in, but don't know the tiny minutiae of the setting. Many of us got started in the 2e era, when the TSR Code had an almost Comics Code-like effect on the way the Realms was depicted and perceived by many. To non-Realms fans, they can look like big experts even. Thanks to the TSR Code, and the lone-hero attitude of many of the books, this makes the Realms look to a casual fan (which means many gamers) as a setting where nigh-omnipotent super NPC's always win over the villains, and nothing really bad ever happens.

The second viewpoint is the hardcore Realms fan, like Faraer. The people who read most (or all) of the novels, know the sourcebooks back and forth, and are well versed in the Gospel of Ed. Now, if you are so well informed and have interpreted what was apparently left unspoken (I don't think you should have to read between the lines to understand a setting IMO), maybe the villains were stronger and there was some kind of great balance and bad things happened and there was a dark aspect to the world (besides obligitory angst from Drizzt), but a lot of people never noticed it, because TSR downplayed it all these years and made the Realms a showcase for big-name heroic celebrity NPC's.

In a fictional world, perception is reality, and to a lot of people the Realms have always been percieved as a world where the Good Guys always won and evil never has a good day, until 3e when they let Evil be Evil.

 

[Desdichado]

He said he wasn't aware of it, not that he'd looked into it and found it not to be so.

No offense, but that sounds a bit like a dodge. As does the whole position of, "Yeah, but if you read every throwaway comment that Ed ever made, which we've collected at this handy website, then you'll see that the perception you get from reading the campaign setting book is actually WRONG! Because, I SWEAR, that website is CANON!"

You may even be right with that--although it appears to me that you're not--but good luck getting folks to take it seriously.

 

[Faraer]

That's not my position: I deliberately argued above based solely on the published material. The web-posted lore clarifies some things, but it isn't necessary to understand this stuff. I don't believe any significant number of people do get that impression from reading the campaign setting book (any of the three) -- it's mainly a Chinese whispers effect.

Ed has said, several times, that per his original agreement with TSR, what he says about the Realms is 'official' unless the company contradicts it in print. When asked about this on the wizards.com boards, Rich Baker said (I just looked for the exact wording and couldn't find it) that he didn't know of any such clause. I think the word of Ed, who's never made a false public statement to my knowledge and whose professional reputation as a freelancer depends on being trustworthy and accurate, is far more reliable here than that of Rich Baker, who isn't familiar with the contract and wasn't even with the company when it was signed.

 

[Sammael]

He said he wasn't aware of it, not that he'd looked into it and found it not to be so.

Is everything Ed says canon? No. Canon is the assemblage of information in the current edition of the rulebooks. Beyond that is a much larger sphere of "we thinks" and "when we get tos" in which Ed's never-ending font of creative energy is quite prominent. For example, if Ed writes a couple of thousand words on Rethmar in the course of a bunch of posts to a message board, it's as good as anything until something else gets into print. In a perfect world, we'd know all about Ed's previous speculation on the topic and make sure it was part and parcel of any other designer's work on that city. Sometimes, it doesn't work out that way. Ed doesn't monitor all RPGs, novels, and PC games being worked on, and we don't keep track of everything he says. Heck, I don't *want* to. I don't want Ed to have to be afraid to speak from the heart about anything he cares to talk about, and I don't want to have to approve what he says before it goes in the public eye. Seems like that would make us both miserable.

In any event, I'm not sure that the whole concept of canon is worth the fuss we seem to invest in it. If something isn't in print, I don't treat it as canon. Even then, I'm willing to "evolve" canon when the situation calls for it (for instance, an edition shift in the D&D game). I know that some fans don't like that, but that's the way the business works.

As one of the chief FR developers at the moment, I'm pretty sure that Richard Baker doesn't need to "look into it."

Please don't misunderstand me. I respect Ed for what he's done and what he is still doing with the Realms, but it hasn't been "his" world for quite a while, and (from all accounts I've heard) his own version differs greatly from the one established as canon by TSR/WotC.

 

[Faraer]

To be clear, these are separate points from the 'is evil winning' question.

Rich was obviously unaware of the agreement when he wrote his response. It takes more than that to cast doubt on Ed Greenwood's word.

Ed's Realms differs from the official Realms in certain specific, defined ways that I know very well. Jim Lowder, for one, interprets the gap to be larger than I do, and put forward a coherent argument for why. But I haven't seen many people say the gap is big, and certainly not in any detail. Why do you think so?

 

[Desdichado]

Actually, I don't doubt Ed's word on it at all--I just doubt that it actually means anything at all one way or another.

But you're right--you've made your case based on print products, so it's a bit of a tangent to continue this sub-discussion.

 

[Faraer]

You're quite right that the practical situation matters as well as the technical one. If you were to take one of the hundreds of postings Ed's made in the last couple of years, most of the time you will find that
-- it doesn't contradict the letter or spirit of any published lore
-- on the contrary, it supports that lore and explains linkages and why things appear as they do
-- it's entertaining, in-depth and, if you care about the subject, interesting
-- it's unlikely WotC will contradict it (I can't think of an instance of that happening)
-- in many cases WotC is unlikely to ever describe that particular subject at all, especially for the daily-life, priesthood-detail kinds of stuff
-- if they did, odds are good the author would consult Ed on it and use his information if there wasn't a brand-management reason not to.

On the other hand, published lore isn't immune to being contradicted either. So if there is a reason not to take Ed's postings as authoritative, or not to use them in your campaign (other than because you don't want to be bothered with that level of detail or research), I don't know what it is.

 

[Shemeska]

Doesn't bother me, I generally out-dark the current Realms anyway. And lots of evil groups on the rise on Toril make for good sources of ideas. I have nothing to complain about much of it.

Plus, I generally don't bother directly with the BBEGs of the Realms, but go for smaller stuff that is perhaps as evil but not as well known.

For instance, the last two trips to the Realms in my 3e Planescape game have been:

1) A hunt within the Great Barrow in northeastern Faerun for a mimir containing the last words of Nergal as he lay in a dying delerium after the battles of the Mulhorandi and Untheric pantheons with the Sorcerer Kings of Imaskar.

2) A PC/NPC wedding in Hallrua. Plus half the Halruaan wedding guests kept trying to bargain with/banish the one yugoloth who was invited to the wedding (A'kin) and the one who crashed the wedding (my namesake). Wedding with archmages, drunken archmages, and at least one drunken fiend = possibility of danger. How is this evil? I don't know, but it was fun and it was in the Realms.

 

[wingsandsword]

To be honest, the thing about "whatever Ed says is canon until contradicted" sounds like a "feel good" clause that TSR agreed to because they knew it was completely meaningless to them. They can write what they want, and not have to fact-check with him, or keep tabs on what he is saying, he can continue to happily muse about the Realms to fans (and occasionally be brought in for an official work), but WotC (and TSR before it), doesn't have to worry in the slightest what he says, just like what Rich said.

I'd say it is pretty meaningless when even if it's in the contract, WotC is completely ignoring it.