Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ilbranteloth" data-source="post: 7827800" data-attributes="member: 6778044">While on the surface this sounds accurate, things have changed in the Realms over the centuries. Perhaps superficially sometimes, but they have. More importantly, though, few campaigns cover a period of "centuries." In our own world, while technology did move on, the period between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance seems very static to the layperson of history, much like the Realms might to many folks.More importantly, in the Realms, like any published setting, you can decide what to include or not in your own campaign. For example, I'm not a fan of many of the "ported from the real world" elements that were dumped into the Realms during TSR's "everything fits into the Realms" period. Beyond that, the campaigns themselves take place in a much more localized fashion. That is, at the table, the PCs aren't concerned about everything that's happening well outside of their given area. Yes, some news comes from distant cities and towns, but it's really what's happening here and now that matters to the PCs. And Ed's point is that there should be lots of stuff going on, some related, some not, to make the world feel bigger than just the current adventure. A different way to look at it, is that there is no such thing as a "side quest." The adventure is whatever the PCs are involved in right now. And that might change. But in the meantime, the activities of the world continue both with and without their involvement. That is, their decisions to not do something can be as important as their decision to do something.We're in the era of published Adventure Paths, and the approach they are teaching is that you need to have some overriding story arc and everything leads to some final conclusion. I've always been a fan of how Gary's early campaigns, and especially Ed's campaigns, where the point is to follow the exploits of many characters over many years. Not epic stories and saving the world (although the novels tend to go that direction), but just following the tales of the average adventurer. Where we'll see them week after week, like a TV series, where they don't necessarily need to be gaining levels every 3-4 sessions, and even when they "go away" for a little while, they can come back even years later to adventure some more.This is what I think of as a "living campaign" where each week we get to see more of some of our favorite heroes and whatever (mis)adventures they get into this week.One of the things I love about the Realms is all of the published material. But nothing is canonical in my campaign unless it actually enters the campaign. I've been running my campaign since the release of the Gray Box, and have never had an issue with "canon" interfering with the campaign. And that's kind of the point, as far as I can tell. I let the players read whatever they want (encourage it, actually), because then they know stuff that their characters would know. Whether the events actually happened as reported in the books is an entirely different story. There's never a prescribed outcome within my campaign, because there's nothing established as fact until it's established as fact within the campaign.Yes, many of them are common tropes, cliches, etc. But that plays really well at the table because it's easy for a bunch of people to grasp onto when they get together for a few hours a week.</blockquote>

Verification