Keep your filthy points of light away from me!

[Gwathlas]

That only applies to FR (and it's not all proven, either - that's conjecture from a single book which has only ever been tangentally related to official FR mechanics).

The OP said that WotC is ramming this down EVERY player's throat and that they're marketing it as "the only way to set up a world".

Atually a lot of what they have said concerns their design controling your games down to how non-combat encounters are run and get rewarded, not to mention the roles each player has to fill. And it does sound like the FR is going to get hosed!

 

[Gwathlas]

That's not what the OP was saying, though. He made the very specific claim that they're setting it up in such a way that they're presenting it as, and I quote, "the only way to set up a world".

So I ask, again: how are they doing this, exactly?

Thats the core idea of the new game starwars and dragond. For now they are leaving ebby alone. Not a ton of books out on it yet to convert. It's also the first setting that is post Gygax.

 

[Zurai]

Atually a lot of what they have said concerns their design controling your games down to how non-combat encounters are run and get rewarded, not to mention the roles each player has to fill. And it does sound like the FR is going to get hosed!

What does ANY of that have to do with Points of Light? PoL is a campaign framework. It has nothing to do with the mechanics of the rules and everything to do with the fluff.

Thats the core idea of the new game starwars and dragond. For now they are leaving ebby alone. Not a ton of books out on it yet to convert. It's also the first setting that is post Gygax.

First: Points of Light has nothing to do with Star Wars. The two are COMPLETELY divorced, since Star Wars is set in a licensed setting that WotC cannot mess with.

Second: What the is "dragond"? A setting? A game? An imaginary friend? Assuming you mean "Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition", I'd ask you to provide proof that it's the core idea behind the entire game, rather than a simple framework for a default setting that requires no upkeep.

Eberron is not the "first setting that is post Gygax". EGG left D&D development in 1985. An example of another post-Gygax setting is Planescape, which wasn't released until 1994, 9 years after EGG left TSR. Another example is Ravenloft, released in 1990.

 

[Shieldhaven]

Well as pointed out previously wotc are altering the FR setting radically and not changing eberron setting at all.

I am, indeed, aware that Eberron is going largely unchanged. I have quite a specific meaning with the phrasing "making Fourth Edition compatible with Eberron." If Eberron (which is not currently PoL by most measures) goes unchanged, the rules supporting it must be written in such a way as to support a non-PoL setting.

They're welcome to alter Forgotten Realms radically. I may be alone in this camp - certainly it is a camp that has been largely silent in the FR-sky-is-falling discussions - but I'm looking forward to the changes in 4e FR. The last two or three years of FR totally lost my interest, and I would love for a new FRCS book to revitalize what was once my intense fandom.

Haven

 

[Tewligan]

But it's also because they seem to emphasise how the standard setting is "Points of Light". The standard setting should not have such assumptions.

Why not? It's pretty much made for people who DON'T want assumptions about their game style. From what we know, it sounds like they're saying "There are cities and castles and stuff, and the dangerous Great Unknown (tm) is everywhere else." Hell, it's barely a setting - it's a generic catch-all for people who don't want a setting pushed in the core books. If you're a casual gamer, you can just toss in pregen adventures anywhere without worrying about conflicting with pre-existing things. If you already have a setting, you obviously don't need to use their generic setting. If you're happy with your Forgotten Realms, you don't need to change to match the new official vision. Why is there such a problem with this non-assumption?

 

[Rechan]

If Eberron (which is not currently PoL by most measures)

I disagree with this statement.

Eberron has an enormously low population. The main continent (Khorvaire) is basically a score of cities scattered over a continent the size of Asia. It's connected via the Lightning Rail, allowing easier travel between those points. But even between those points, there's lots of wilderness and monsters.

 

[Zurai]

From what we know, it sounds like they're saying "There are cities and castles and stuff, and the dangerous Great Unknown (tm) is everywhere else." Hell, it's barely a setting - it's a generic catch-all for people who don't want a setting pushed in the core books.

Exactly. It is NOT a campaign setting.

It is a campaign framework.

What's the difference? A campaign setting is like a landscape painting hanging up in an art gallery - it has most of the details filled in, leaving just enough up for the DM (observer) to fill in with his own imagination.

A campaign framework, on the other hand, is simply a piece of canvas stretched over a frame, with only the vaguest hints of paint or drawing on it. It provides the backbone of the campaign without ever dictating any element of the campaign.

Why is the fact that PoL is a framework rather than a setting so perfect for WotC? Because it lets them present examples in books without forcing them on players, ironically. The DM is completely free to ignore any and all fluff presented with the game - or to incorporate all of it. PoL assumes only the barest amount of setting possible to provide a framework to base the rules around.

 

[Stone Dog]

I disagree with this statement.

Eberron has an enormously low population. The main continent (Khorvaire) is basically a score of cities scattered over a continent the size of Asia. It's connected via the Lightning Rail, allowing easier travel between those points. But even between those points, there's lots of wilderness and monsters.

Unfortunately a lot of the campaign setting doesn't touch on this. I've had this argument before and I have to admit, despite how easily you could focus on this aspect without changing the setting, the actual ECS book describes the Five Nations as being largely pretty secure. Your Eberron may vary as mine certainly does, but it isn't an unreasonable disconnect.

Edit- Oh, and the scale of the map is completely wrong. Khorvaire according to Baker could probably nestle in the USA pretty snugly. There is a lot of room, but it wasn't intended to be as vast as the map made it.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

The standard setting of 3.x was Greyhawk. It made many assumptions.

Did having Wee Jas in the PHB effect FR?

No. Because in 3e, they didn't feel compelled to change the Forgotten Realms to make it cleave to everything that 3e does.

 

[Stone Dog]

No. Because in 3e, they didn't feel compelled to change the Forgotten Realms to make it cleave to everything that 3e does.

"The Simbul was always a sorcerer. You just didn't notice." Not a big change, I admit.. but one that leaps to mind.