D&D 5E Listened to latest "Lore you should know" and......

[Shasarak]

I am, frankly, as croggled by this characterization as I am by why you feel insulted and saddened by WotC handing the keys of their major RPG setting over to you.

Saying "Actually, I think this is a good thing and I don't understand the mindset that finds being empowered upsetting" isn't lack of compassion. It isn't gloating or reveling in your pain. I understand and accept that you are hurt and that your hurt is genuine, if that's what you want to hear; please, accept my permission, if you want it, to feel your feels. But the perspective that sees endless possibilities and freedom before you, none of it superseded from on high, and feels hosed because of it remains mind-bogglingly alien to me. Feel free to explicate further on your perspective if it will mend whatever failure of empathy that implies on my part.

Except: it's still not cool to say "I get to complain about this as much as I like, but you can't be happy about it." You get to feel your feels; you don't get to police mine.

The guy just asked you not to be so gleeful about your victory mate.

If anyone wanted to write a Forgotten Realms fan fic then they always have been able to, just like I can get a few mates around on the weekend to play Superbowl Football. But I have never actually seen anyone complaining about that.

Is that really what you think people are upset about?

 

[Parmandur]

The guy just asked you not to be so gleeful about your victory mate.

If anyone wanted to write a Forgotten Realms fan fic then they always have been able to, just like I can get a few mates around on the weekend to play Superbowl Football. But I have never actually seen anyone complaining about that.

Is that really what you think people are upset about?

...but isn't all RPG activity in the Realms, by definition a sort of fan-fiction?

And that's what WotC is doing,delegating all the APs to fan-fiction creation kits. There is no canonical version of Tyranny of Dragons or Princes of the Apocalypse: in terms of canon, they will likely remain in limbo as potential timelines only hazily referenced: they exist in actuality only in the versions of the Realms at peoples individual tables.

 

[Shasarak]

...but isn't all RPG activity in the Realms, by definition a sort of fan-fiction?

Has anyone ever refused to play because it was not going to be officially recognised? I mean is that even a thing that needs to be solved?

And that's what WotC is doing,delegating all the APs to fan-fiction creation kits. There is no canonical version of Tyranny of Dragons or Princes of the Apocalypse: in terms of canon, they will likely remain in limbo as potential timelines only hazily referenced: they exist in actuality only in the versions of the Realms at peoples individual tables.

Wow these "fan-fiction" creation kits are totally different then all the ones that all RPG companies ever have been doing for the last 50 years. Oh wait, no they are exactly the same. But now with a cool marketing name.

 

[Parmandur]

Has anyone ever refused to play because it was not going to be officially recognised? I mean is that even a thing that needs to be solved?



Wow these "fan-fiction" creation kits are totally different then all the ones that all RPG companies ever have been doing for the last 50 years. Oh wait, no they are exactly the same. But now with a cool marketing name.

Well, if it's not a problem to have your own version, what's the big deal about a more open "official" version? They are still selling all the old books of lore, and making new ones like SCAG and SKT.

 

[ProgBard]

The guy just asked you not to be so gleeful about your victory mate.

For the last swiving time:

I am not being "gleeful."

This is not a "victory."

I am pleased with this development. I think it a vast improvement over the previous handling in many ways, and that it solves more problems than it causes. I have taken some pains to articulate why I think this is so. That is all.

I am, however, beginning to wonder if the readiness to see those things when they are not there is part of the problem.

If anyone wanted to write a Forgotten Realms fan fic then they always have been able to, just like I can get a few mates around on the weekend to play Superbowl Football. But I have never actually seen anyone complaining about that.

Is that really what you think people are upset about?

At this point, I no longer have much idea what people are so upset about, to the point that this has ruined their day. But if you think this is about "fanfic," I have to wonder if the gulf of our communication is bridgeable.

 

[Irennan]

On the subject of "hard-canon", it's unlikely that WotC will ever provide that as of now.

They have indeed provided the new status quo of the Realms, tho, painted in broad strokes--trying to appease as many fans as possible, bringing back a lot of places, characters, and gods, but also keeping things like the dragonborn from 4e. They did provide some "hard canon" for 5e through the recent novels, but they'll never tell in detail what happened that brought the Realms to the current state. They don't want to load people with lore anymore, and while I think that lore is a bonus, a further option, and while I welcome it because I am interested in the Realms not only as a game setting, I can see why WotC would take that approach. Tons of explanations about, say, how X god came back would probably turn off newcomers and people who just want the setting as a malleable background for their game. Merely providing a "current state" of the Realms will be enough for those categories of players/DMs, which probably make up the majority of their customer base.

The approach of the previous editions of the Realms is gone, and--as much as I'd like it--I honestly don't think that WotC will ever bring it back.

 

[Shasarak]

At this point, I no longer have much idea what people are so upset about, to the point that this has ruined their day. But if you think this is about "fanfic," I have to wonder if the gulf of our communication is bridgeable.

Well since I feel like I am Homer being told by Mr Burns that you wont take away my precious apples then I would have to agree that you dont understand what people are so upset about.

 

[Parmandur]

On the subject of "hard-canon", it's unlikely that WotC will ever provide that as of now.

They have indeed provided the new status quo of the Realms, tho, painted in broad strokes--trying to appease as many fans as possible, bringing back a lot of places, characters, and gods, but also keeping things like the dragonborn from 4e. They did provide some "hard canon" for 5e through the recent novels, but they'll never tell in detail what happened that brought the Realms to the current state. They don't want to load people with lore anymore, and while I think that lore is a bonus, a further option, and while I welcome it because I am interested in the Realms not only as a game setting, I can see why WotC would take that approach. Tons of explanations about, say, how X god came back would probably turn off newcomers and people who just want the setting as a malleable background for their game. Merely providing a "current state" of the Realms will be enough for those categories of players/DMs, which probably make up the majority of their customer base.

The approach of the previous editions of the Realms is gone, and--as much as I'd like it--I honestly don't think that WotC will ever bring it back.

Well, if the films take off that may change: with lore stuff for sale at Target.

Time will tell ...

 

[MNblockhead]

While the horse has long been rendered into glue, I have to doff my hat to ProgBard for giving me some new favorite words and turns of phrase:

croggled
swiving
yuck your yum

I almost want to troll him in an attempt to get him to write more.

 

[TwoSix]

Well since I feel like I am Homer being told by Mr Burns that you wont take away my precious apples then I would have to agree that you dont understand what people are so upset about.

It's not hard to understand. You want the Forgotten Realms to be REAL again, like it was in 2001 when the 3e FRCS was released and everything was codified and defined and made sense. I get it.

It's just important to understand that ship has sailed. And not only sailed, it's hit an iceberg, and it sank, and they already filmed a movie about it, and the director moved on to make movies about blue aliens who have tail sex.